Eating Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’ve spooned beef over buttered noodles in a lidded casserole dish, pulled on my rubber boots and parka, and made it down the narrow hall and stairs without slipping on puddles of melting snow. When I push backward through the front door into the cold, I realizethis is no ordinary storm. Where not shoveled, the snow buries my feet, and the wind is whipping pellets of ice into my face. I try to shove my hair under my hood while juggling the casserole and my purse, then walk as quickly as I can to my car parked at the curb.
    Plenty of traffic sloshes by out on Everett, so if I can make it the half-block there, I should have no problem with the cross-town drive south to Benny’s. Once on the main roads, I take it slow, ignore the maniacal pickups and SUVs whizzing by and sending up dirty spray on I-405, I-5, then Boones Ferry Road. The usual afternoon rush hour seems to have been canceled, though; what does everyone else know that I don’t? Did they tune to StormCenter 5 or KNUZ instead of burying themselves in drivel about low-carb croissants and pommes frites without the frites ?
    Portland is known for shutting down at just the hint of snow, but I’m almost to Benny’s. I’ll drop off the dish quickly, run by the grocery store for tomorrow’s supplies, and then settle back in at home with a bowl of beef, no noodles, and fruit for dessert. I’ll call my mother. Somehow I have to make her remember that for most of her life, Benny was her best friend.
     
    Uncle Benny’s house always felt like a home should, even when we first started making quick stops on our way to the shopping center with Mom, to see if he needed anything. They’d have a cup of coffee and smoke while my sisters and I explored the house, room by room, until it became familiar territory. I’d run my fingers over the spines of his books in the living room, hide from my sisters underneath his bed, eat butter-and-sugar sandwiches while perched on the stool in the kitchen, listening to Mom and Benny talk about nothing I could understand. I always felt a sense of calm there—a respite from the choppy waters we navigated at our house. No one got mad at Benny’s. He let us have the run of the house, and never made us feel that kids were an annoyance to be put up with. And Mom always smiled more, let us get away with more, when she was around Benny.
    It felt possible, at those times, that she might have enough love for all of us: for Benny and for Dad. For Anne, who was the smartest, and Christine, who was the prettiest. And for me, who had no special talentsother than eating, a proclivity my mother tried to discourage. “You don’t want to be fat like your grandmother, now, do you?” she’d ask when I’d beg for one of Benny’s famous sugar sandwiches. I’d shake my head, feeling no connection whatever to the photos of her mother in a tent-shaped housedress at the age of fifty, just wanting that sweet, crunchy texture and flavor inside my mouth and knowing I shouldn’t.
    One day at Benny’s, Anne and I were hiding from Christine under the bed. When we heard footsteps coming down the hall, we tucked ourselves together into a tight ball, trying not to giggle. We heard Benny’s voice and immediately fell silent.
    “I don’t know why you worry so much, Bebe,” he said, coming closer. “She’ll grow into it. It’s just puppy fat.” We saw his grease-stained boots beneath the overhang of blanket, then my mother’s tan flats. They came toe to toe, then parted.
    “Not in my family,” she said. “I have to starve myself to stay thin. And besides, Ellie’s the spitting image of my mother. It just makes me sick—”
    I didn’t hear the rest because Anne clamped her hands over my ears and didn’t let go until Mom and Benny had gone back into the kitchen. I tried not to cry—Anne always accused me of being a crybaby as it was—but she pretended she didn’t notice when my jaw quivered.
    “Don’t listen to her,” she whispered, kicking the