Nine
Honey wasn’t unsympathetic. She hated the days when Fern came home from school visibly downcast and discouraged.
She didn’t know if the Jesus prayer would work, but wasn’t it worth a try?
Honey also believed, strongly, that if Fern could lose a little weight and feel confident in her appearance, the stuttering would improve.
Wouldn’t it? Fern walked around like she was trying to conceal something; that kind of posture couldn’t help her esophagus.
Larynx? If Fern felt more comfortable in her body, prettier, if her school uniform hung nicely, all of it would make a difference.
After Finn’s heart attack, he begrudgingly joined Weight Watchers and so did Honey to keep him accountable.
When they signed up, she only had eight pounds to lose.
The women registering them argued that Honey’s weight was in the normal range already and she didn’t need to reduce, but Honey persisted.
She lost eight pounds in three weeks and secured her lifetime membership as long as she maintained her weight within a few pounds.
Weight Watchers had changed Finn’s health and her entire life.
She continued going to the meetings long after Finn had dropped thirty pounds and been given a cautious but clean bill of health from his cardiologist. She loved the meetings.
She loved hearing other people open up about their weight and diet struggles.
She was a cheerleader for all! She offered excellent suggestions about how to cut calories and still eat delicious meals.
One night, her group leader asked her out for coffee after the meeting.
As they both emptied multiple packets of Sweet’N Low into their black coffee and split a small scoop of orange sherbet, Lenore asked Honey if she would consider becoming a group leader.
“You’re good at this, and most importantly, you know how to lift the members’ spirits.
We need someone to cover a new meeting starting downtown. ”
Now, when Honey led her own meetings, she always started by talking about confidence.
People could say beauty comes from within until they were blue in the face, but when a person went shopping for a new dress or slacks and nothing fit or they had to go up a size, they didn’t leave the store feeling beautiful, no matter how appealing their insides.
No, they left feeling defeated, unworthy, unattractive.
Honey understood the ups and downs of self-esteem as they related to her bathroom scale, an object in the house that she’d anthropomorphized.
She thought of the pale blue–and-silver scale tucked beside the pedestal sink as an older woman named Shirley.
Sometimes, right before she stepped on the scale, completely naked, of course, and only after defecating, she would mumble a little prayer to Shirley.
“Come on, girl. Come on, Shirl.” She would hold her breath as the tiny needle hovered.
She knew. She always knew. She could stand in her bathroom and feel her middle and her hips and know exactly what the scale would show.
Up four pounds, down two, up three, down one.
This morning the needle moved alarmingly to the right, farther than usual, showing a five-pound gain.
Six, if she was perfectly honest—she’d kind of lifted one foot to nudge it back to five.
Five! Only a few ounces until the scale went into dangerous territory.
She would have to work extra hard for the next few weeks to get back down to where she felt her best. Confident.
“I am not a little piggy,” she whispered to herself as she stepped off the scale and pushed it back under the bathroom cabinet.
She wanted to teach Fern the value of setting a goal and hitting it. She wanted to change Fern’s world.
For the past year, she’d tried to slyly cut back on Fern’s intake, with little success.
“Are you Weight Watching me?” Fern would ask, eyes narrowed as she prodded her fork at a pile of steamed broccoli or half of a baked potato, dry, with salt and pepper, while Dune was slathering butter and salt all over his potato and steak. He’d butter an orange if Honey would let him.
“Boys have completely different dietary needs and body makeup.”
“I’m not one of your members.” Fern put a little top spin on the word members and Honey let it slide.
Fern and Dune made fun of her and her members behind her back and sometimes a little bit right to her face, but it was okay.
She had found her calling. To deliver dietary advice and group support to whomever in Rochester needed her, to help those women and the occasional man reduce and reach their goal weight and, therefore, become the best version of themselves.
It’s all she wanted for Fern—to become the best Fern possible.
As she was running over in her head what the best possible Fern might look like, the real live Fern walked into the kitchen and made a beeline for the refrigerator.
Honey stopped herself from commenting on Fern’s outfit (an old pair of hip-huggers, a worn plaid cheesecloth blouse, both straining at the seams) and her hair (a veritable rat’s nest in the back).
“Can I help you?” Honey asked her daughter.
“I’m feeling a little peckish.”
“I finished cleaning up after lunch. Kitchen’s closed.”
“I don’t want a meal. I want a snack.”
Honey walked over to the refrigerator, took an apple out of the crisper bin, handed it to Fern, and closed the fridge door.
Fern sighed, but she could tell by the set of Honey’s mouth that anything else would cause a fight and although sometimes she wanted nothing more than to poke at her mother, she didn’t have the energy today.
Besides, Clara was coming over soon to rehearse with Dune and they would definitely make popcorn.
Clara would probably bring homemade cookies.
“You know,” Honey said, facing away from Fern, taking the sponge from the sink and wiping down a spotless linoleum counter, “if the, the, voice issues are bothering you—”
Fern sighed and bit into the apple with her front teeth, spraying Honey.
“Fern!”
“Sorry! It was an accident.”
“I swear. Sometimes I don’t know where you came from.”
They stood facing off for a second. Honey took the apple from Fern’s hands and grabbed a paring knife and cut it into five neat wedges, one with a bite taken out of it. “Here. What I was going to say is if you really want to see a speech therapist, I will look into it.”
Fern stopped chewing. “You will?”
“If you want.”
“I do,” Fern said. “I want that.”
“Okay. Well. And there’s another thing I was thinking about.”
Fern knew there had to be a catch. “What?” she said.
“I think we need a two-pronged approach.”
“Mom.”
“I think that speech therapy might help. But I also would like you to start coming to my Weight Watchers meeting.”
Fern sighed and looked out the window into the backyard.
It was a beautiful autumn Sunday afternoon, and she could see the kids who lived in the house behind her running around their backyard, jumping into piles of vibrantly colored leaves, calling, “You’re it!
No, you’re it!” She wondered if they got to eat whatever they wanted.
“I’ll go. But if I hate it, I’m going to stop.”
Honey clapped her hands. “Wonderful!” She gave Fern a hug. “You’re not going to hate it. You might even make some friends! Some of my regulars have started bringing their daughters.”
“Sounds like a blast. And speech therapy?”
“I’ll investigate tomorrow. I promise. Deal?” Honey put out her hand as if they were business associates.
“Sure, Mom. Deal.”
Finn walked in on the handshake. “What kind of toil and trouble is going on in here?”
“Not trouble at all,” Honey said. “Fern is coming to Weight Watchers with me. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Finn eyed his daughter and her lack of enthusiasm for the browning apple slices in front of her. “This was your idea?” he said.
Fern rolled her eyes. “What do you think?”
Honey glared at Finn. “You liked those meetings. Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Fern said. She didn’t want to risk losing the speech therapist before she’d even started. “I’ll give it a try.”
“That’s my girl,” Finn said. He had a copy of Leon Uris’s Trinity tucked under one arm and was wearing his running clothes.
“You’re going out now?” Honey said. Despite her encouragement around all changes concerning food, Honey was suspicious of Finn’s recent running habit and the subsequent pile of sweaty clothes stinking up her laundry room.
“Quick run. After I’m done, I’ll head into the store to check on things.”
“Have you mastered reading and running?” she said, pointing to the massive tome under Finn’s arm.
“Dropping it across the street.”
“Would I like it?”
For the entirety of their marriage, Finn had never seen Honey read anything other than a magazine. “Maybe. It’s about the Irish famine. Lots of people sitting around eating nothing.”
“Finn!” Honey said, trying and failing to slap his arm as he started lightly jogging in place just out of her reach. “That’s not funny.”
“It is a little funny,” Fern said, picking up an apple slice.
“Your lawyer has spoken,” Honey said to her husband, sounding more resentful than she meant to; Finn and Fern had become two peas in a pod over the past year, Fern always ready to leap to Finn’s defense in the face of any criticism.
He kissed Fern on the temple. “The verdict is in. I’m funny.” Fern laughed as he ran backward out the kitchen door. “I’m funny!” he kept repeating until they couldn’t hear him anymore.
Honey grabbed the plate with one apple slice left, emptied it into the garbage pail, and shoved the plate into the dishwasher. “Kitchen closed.”