Crave by Rachel Laverdiere

                    Pat Pilon CC
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Crave


   Wedging myself further into the cushions, I push Angel from my lap and she lands in Shane’s spot. When she bats the remote control to the floor, the New Year’s celebration in New York’s Times Square floods the living room. The din dulls the sound of the ticking clock and pulls my thoughts from the spoils gathered in the kitchen.    
   I push the stack of take-out menus from the threadbare armrest. “Come, bebé. Jump up.” 
   Angel turns her stoic face toward me and blinks. She turns with demi-swish of her feather duster tail and stares at Shane’s absence.
  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “The ball won’t drop in Times Square for another twenty minutes!” Tomorrow, the blank page of a new chapter begins. I’ve cleaned out my cupboards. Mother is dead. Shane is gone. “It’s us against the world from now on,” I murmur into Angel’s fur.
   Angel squints at me, Mother’s anger shining through her pupils. She opens her mouth, and Mother’s voice tsk-tsks, “Really, Adeleine. Look at how you’ve let yourself go. It’s a disgrace.” 
  Removing Angel’s paw from my throat, I stammer, “Angel-kins? Come back!” I bury my nose into Angel’s silky scruff and whisper, “I thought she was finally gone for good.”
   Mother’s voice rings free again, “There’s only so much failure one can endure.” 
   Heat rises to my cheeks. Of course, Mother would think my having pushed Shane out the door a loss when, really, it’s the only thing that might save me. 
   I whisper into Angel’s ear, “Please stop letting Mother out.” 
   Cramps torpedo through my gurgling guts. Before hoisting myself off the couch, I clench my buttocks. She needles me with her eyes then hops to the floor to block my access to the kitchen. 
   “I’m just getting a glass of water,” I say as I step over Angel, but she takes a swipe. Blood blooms across my Achilles tendon. 
   After a glass of tepid water, my blood chugs a little less, and my tongue loosens from the roof of my mouth. Guzzling two more glasses of water as I eye the garbage bag by the back door. I’m not ready to take it to the dumpster. 
   The microwave’s neon digits catch my eye. They snort, For God’s sake, Woman! There’s still time for powdered doughnuts. Nothing counts until midnight! 
   Angel hisses and arches her back. 
   Eventually, 11:48 becomes 11:49. 
   At the back door, my knees creak and pop as I crouch. Acid rages as it rises in my throat. Adrenaline zings through my veins. It’s 11:51. Angel bumps her head against my rump. Tears sting the back of my nose. 
   She’ll be disgruntled. But she won’t stop loving me. She won’t leave. 
   11:52.
   I drop the knotted flaps of the garbage bag. My light punt wakes the broken glass within. Not once did Mother try to overcome the contents of her liquor cupboard. Never once did she admit to her problem, but this afternoon, one cupboard at a time, I said good-bye to Baker’s chocolate, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, icing sugar, chunks of Skor, Oreo cookies and caramel sauce. Said au revoir to pancake mix, maple syrup, maple sugar, brown sugar and white sugar. Sayonara Chef Boyardee, SpaghettiOs, canned ravioli, canned rigatoni and little sausages in a can. Arrivederci jarred jams and jellies, squeezable cheese, candied cherries, whipped cream and Christmas cake. And shalom to the much-cherished powdered doughnuts. 
   Now, those powdered doughnuts sing out, It’s not quite midnight. We promise to melt on your tongue. 
   It’s true. Pastries have never let me down. While Mother sat in the kitchen indulging in her vodka, Papa and I gorged ourselves on jelly doughnuts in the shade of the willow tree. But the pastries weren’t enough to make him stay.
   From inside the bag, the remains of the family-sized four-cheese lasagna belches, For fuck’s sake—just eat me already! 
Angle paws at my leg, but I wipe cookie crumbs from the half-crimped tinfoil lid and tease, “Don’t be so cheesed that I couldn’t quite finish you off!” Leaning into the bag, I whisper, “To be fair, I’d just devoured a whole tub of chocolate chip mint. I always meant to come back for you.” 
   Angel holds her tail high and sashays into the living room.     
   11:54. 
   I plunge my arm deep into the bag. A sharp bite surprises me as I tug up the plastic doughnut box. Glass shards rain onto the floor. The doughnuts are unharmed, but my blood splatters on the ceramic tiles. 
   11:55 becomes 11:56 as I hold my hand under a stream of cold water. My wound weeps pink puddles in the sink. 
   The powdery O’s plead, Pick me! Pick me! Hurry!, so I stuff four into my mouth and chew. The reward is instantaneous. Flavour brightens the drab kitchen. 
   A muffled voice rises from the garbage bag. Hey, Hey! Don’t forget me! 
   I wrap a musty tea towel around my wounded hand and protect the other with a potholder before I rummage through the trash. 
   11:57.
   I ease into a new rhythm: doughnut-doughnut-heaping spoonful; doughnut-doughnut-heaping spoonful; doughnut-doughnut-heaping spoonful.
   11:58. 
  A full chorus of edibles and timepieces chant in crescendo: doughnut-doughnut-heaping spoonful; doughnut-doughnut-heaping spoonful; doughnut-doughnut-heaping spoonful. 
   My blood drips into the sink. The lasagna grunts. My head whirls. Mini-doughnuts screech. From the living room, the televised crowd cheers as the final countdown begins: 10…doughnut… 9…8…doughnut ...7...6…5…swallow… 4… cram a spoonful of cold lasagna into my mouth—it slops onto my sweatshirt…3… chew, chew 2…1! As the ball drops over Times Square, I swallow my last mouthful. In the living room, the crowd explodes into “Auld Lang Syne.” 
   I shake Angel’s food dish. “I’m sorry, Angel-kins,” I whisper.  I’m not surprised that she doesn’t take the bait. She needs some time before she’ll come out of hiding. Then, catnip will coax her forgiveness. 
   In slippered feet, I walk through the snow and toss my temptations into the dumpster.  

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Rachel Laverdiere is a writer, course designer and instructor living on the Canadian prairies. She is a CNF editor at Barren Magazine and a regular contributor at Entropy Magazine. Rachel's writing has been published in journals such as The Common, CutBank, X-R-A-Y Literary and Pithead Chapel. Her flash CNF was shortlisted for CutBank's 2019 Big Sky, Small Prose Flash Contest, made The Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2020 and is nominated for Best of the Net. To find more of Rachel's writing or her writing courses, visit www.rachellaverdiere.com.

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