I had to marry Zack, just to have those beautiful eyes forever envelop me like home. Cardiologist's command, moves that made women stop on the street, congenitally rich, and my best sexual surprise ever? Why look inside his expensive Sub-Zero? And I was still okay after, drunk one night with Zack away, I was familiarized into an old boyfriend's bed; Zack found out a few weeks later, and I thought he was going to acro-disintegrate. Instead he got one of his professional friends (a hot young lady psychiatrist with a special interest in marital infidelity) to mediate between us. She never breached (was) political correctness, but I got her message: you did the deed, bitch, now skulk up for your punishment. No subtle psychodynamics for Zack: you take control of causes and effects, or get blown away. Getting his work on diet and heart disease in major journals helped lock it in his mind: healthy eating equals long life. Finally I did take a look into his fridge. Lord Jesus: tofu, carrots, brown rice, multigrain bread, skim milk… I’m in deep trouble. Problem being I came from this mother who has lived her life by feeding the universe. Breakfast announced a standard to which the day never measured up: pork sausage oozes melted fat and faint nutmeg, pancakes of sour cream drink soft butter with maple syrup, hot oatmeal with brown sugar cools in thick cream in my memory. Friends at school couldn't believe the amount of smoked meat in my sandwiches or me dipping them in mustard or aioli in a paper cup. The injuries of the day eclipsed by crackling roast pork beside potatoes crisp-fried in duck fat for dinner. "Christ", said my heart-throb, "Does she have any idea what that food is doing to your arteries?” I didn't argue. Like my artsy background could support, against a national-hero scientist, the intuition I could never shake: How does anyone who eats for pleasure ever KNOW that they would have had their heart attack any later, if they had spent their life eating food they hate? It’s like you’re dead before they bury you. The effect of Häagen-Dazs is beneficial right now; the effect of its cholesterol is theoretical and impossible ever to confirm. You only live once. My choice was no choice at all: I always cooked one dinner for Zack’s eyes and another for my stomach. The oculo-gastric schizophrenia continued on his sabbatical in Lyon. The daily parade of suckholes celebrating his academic career didn't change reality: I was in heaven; Zack was in hell (or so it seemed…). All the food was rich (and delicious). "Why aren't all these fucking people dead?" He was on the defensive. OK for him to talk like that, until I got home early from the Saturday market with andouilette, Langres, and foie gras, to glimpse the impossible-to-ignore ass of the ballet student from upstairs disappearing around the corner, and Zack, hopping, pulling on his pants. After that, his idea that great food is poison wasn't aired much, but still he never touched anything he considered unhealthy. Back home; the marriage is in armed truce. My feelings as I drive to the hospital after the always-feared phone call don’t seem to belong to me. "45 is young for an infarct this big.” says Zack's resident, importantly clerking his boss into intensive care. “He's always been incredible about lifestyle…" Later I found out the heart attack had been the unexpected climax of an afternoon with a nurse. I went home in the rain. Zack's attending cardiology colleague calls at 3 AM, balls in his throat: they’ve done everything to save him, but all his arteries were blocked. Feeling unreal, I gently slide a big slice of custard pie founded in jam from the fridge (now my fridge) onto a plate, press its soft sweet egg and firm butter crust between my teeth, and suck the icy sugar and acid balance of a glass of last night's beautiful old Sauternes.
