"All-Day Breakfast"

Lisa’s next-door neighbour, Eileen, was always commenting on how the pregnancy weight seemed to melt off Lisa like a popsicle in summer. Lisa would raise her cigarette and call it her one hundred percent foolproof secret diet, but really, she hadn’t had much of an appetite since the baby was born six months ago. Her other son was seven and her daughter was five and Lisa was completely miserable. Her husband, Lenny, was a police detective. The big case had landed on his desk in May, and since then he hadn’t been home much. Now it was August.

          All summer, Lisa and Eileen sat in the backyard with their six children, lawn chairs pulled up next to the kiddie pool with their feet in. There was no fence. They had one big backyard between their bungalows. The children got sunburnt and then tanned, and Lisa loved the way sunshine got trapped under their skin. Her children were a bright spot in her otherwise grey life. At night, when they were in bed, she would sit at the kitchen table with her cigarette, not sure if she wanted Lenny to come home or not. When he wasn’t there she felt lonely. When he finally came home in the early morning hours, she felt rage.

          “We never see you anymore. The kids never see you anymore.”

          “I know,” Lenny would say, not even offering up a fight. Then he would sit down on the couch and stare at nothing. Lisa knew he was thinking about the big case. He got this way when a killer was on the loose. They all did. Lisa knew this from the parties, sequestered in the corner with the other wives. It’s the price we pay being married to cops. Glad it’s not me chasing down monsters. What do you expect? But divorce rates were high in the department —  always an uptick with a serial killer on the loose. Wives taking the kids to their mothers and the husbands not even noticing until a week later and by then it was too late.

          When Lenny called from the office one afternoon, Lisa was a bit relieved to finally hear his voice.

          “I’m bringing Rutger home for dinner,” he said. “We need a home-cooked meal for once.”

          Rutger was Lenny’s partner. Young guy. Never married.

          “I don’t have anything to cook,” said Lisa.

          There was silence on the other end. “Don’t we have a pot roast in the freezer?”

          “It’s frozen solid.”

          “Take it out now, then. Just leave it in the sun.”

          So Lisa took the pot roast back to the kiddie pool, put it on a lawn chair beside her and Eileen.

          “Company coming?” asked Eileen. Nobody would opt to turn their oven on, in this heat, unless it was company coming.

          “Lenny’s bringing his partner home.”

          “Rutger? That eyeful?”

          “You kidding me? He’s a weirdo.”

          “Douglas!” said Eileen, addressing her oldest. “Grab us some ice will you? Dump it here, right into the pool.”

          Douglas looked up. The kids were gathered on the lawn, over near the sandbox. They were all eating freezies, including the baby, blue and purple dye running down their mouths like blood.

          By the time Lenny and Rutger came in around 9pm, the pot roast was overdone and the kitchen was sweltering. Lisa had put on a blouse and freshened her make-up but now sweat ran down her back and beaded on her forehead. She poured three whiskies over ice, asked Lenny to carve the roast and leaned back on the counter with her drink. She saw Rutger eyeing her and put the glass to her forehead, then her chest.

          “Scorcher out there, hey Ruts? How’s your mother doing?”

          “She’s on oxygen now. Nurse looks in on her every day.”

          “That’s gotta cost you.”

          Rutger shrugged. “She’s my mother.”

          They sat down to the pot roast. It came with roasted potatoes and frozen corn. Lenny topped up the whiskey. Lisa put a jug of ice water on the table and watched a ring of condensation form almost immediately on the veneer.

          “How are the kids?” asked Lenny.

          Lisa stared at him. “I don’t know, it’s summer. They’re exactly the same.” She lit a cigarette. “Any leads on the case? You’re going to wrap this thing up soon?”

          They looked at her and then down at their plates, caught for a moment in their obsession, their responsibility. Lisa smoked. She put the whiskey glass to her chest again, moving it up to her neck, curling her head down and around it.

          “Absolutely,” Lenny snapped out of it, spooning corn into his mouth.

          “Yep,” said Rutger, cutting another bite of pot roast. “We’re right on the cusp. But sometimes you need to step away for a second, right?”

          “Little breather,” said Lenny. “Clear the head.”

          “Guess so,” said Lisa. She got up from the table and opened the freezer for more ice, the cold air rushing out at her then dying in the hot kitchen.

          “Been too long since I had a home-cooked meal,” said Rutger.

          “It’s not much of a meal,” said Lisa. “Pot roast is overdone. We should have barbequed.”

          “Well I love Fran’s as much as the next guy, but scrambled eggs for dinner gets tired after the hundredth time.”

          “Fran your girlfriend?”

          “No, I’m talking about Fran’s.”

          “I don’t know about Fran.”

          “Lise,” said Lenny. “He’s talking about Fran’s. You know, by headquarters.”

          “I told you, I don’t know about Fran.”

          “The diner, Lise. Across the street from headquarters. Been there almost every night working on this case.”

          “It’s open at night?”

          “Twenty-four hours.”

          “Oh,” said Lisa. She added some ice to her glass and sat down. “I guess I just thought you were at the office.”

          “Sometimes we’re at the office.”

          “I didn’t know about the diner.”

          “Well the office doesn’t serve food.”

          “The office,” said Rutger, “doesn’t have a sexy waitress.”

          “You got secretaries,” said Lisa.

          “Not all night,” said Rutger.

          Lenny glanced at Lisa and then at his partner. “That’s your thing, Ruts. I go there to concentrate. To mull things over. To get some perspective.”

          “And to eat,” said Lisa.

          “Of course,” said Lenny. “We gotta eat somewhere. But your food beats Fran’s any day.”

          “Pot roast is overdone,” said Lisa, motioning with her cigarette.

          “How would you know, Lisa?” asked Rutger. “You haven’t had a single bite.”

          Lisa looked down at her plate. The neat little piles of potatoes and corn. The small piece of meat. It filled her with tenderness. It was a plate she would fix for one of the children. Her untouched whiskey was watered-down, two batches of ice melted into it. She realized, then, that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.

          “That was great,” said Lenny, pushing back from the table. He kissed her on the cheek, then grabbed his briefcase from the table in the hallway. Rutger followed him into the living room. Methodically, they unlatched their briefcases and pulled out files, stacking them in neat piles on and beside the coffee table. Lisa wandered over and, leaving her cigarette in her mouth, picked up a file and opened it. Among written documents and forms, it contained photos from the crime scene. A butchered woman, younger than Lisa. Clothes pulled from her body at strange angles.

          “Ah,” said Lenny, remembering something. He disappeared back into the kitchen and returned with the whiskey bottle and their tumblers. He topped up their drinks, then placed the bottle down carefully on the carpet, beside the couch. She watched them as they took a breath, preparing themselves. She watched them as they began to open up files. To concentrate. To mull things over.

          Men obsessed with men, thought Lisa. Men obsessed with men who kill women.

          The next day in the backyard, the children carried pails of water from the kiddie pool into the sandbox, splashing half of it onto the lawn on the way. They were building a moat around a pitiful sandcastle which was already crumbling from the blazing sun.

          “How’d the pot roast turn out?” asked Eileen.

          “Oh fine,” said Lisa. She watched the baby put sand in its mouth, immediately regret the decision, try to spit it out.

          “Is that Rutger still single?”

          “Far as I know.”

          “That’s a shame.”

          “All of them should stay single,” said Lisa.

          “All of who?”

          “The men. The police. It’s better for them to be alone. Then they can go ahead and obsess all they want. They can mull things over in their all-night diners with their all-day breakfasts and nobody has to sit at home wondering. Nobody has to open up a file and see another murdered girl, killed by another man because his mother never loved him.”

          “Shit, Lisa,” said Eileen. “Everything okay with you and Lenny?”

          “And another thing. I think my stomach’s disappearing.”

          “You’ve got nothing there to disappear in the first place. I always told you that you were lucky. Must be genetics. I still have the pregnancy tummy and Justine’s almost four.”

          “I’m not talking about the baby weight, Eileen.” Lisa tried to light another cigarette but her hand was shaking just a little bit. It must have taken a full thirty seconds to get it, Eileen watching the whole time. “I’m talking about my actual stomach. The organ. I think it’s gone.”

          “Oh,” said Eileen, the word coming out slow. She turned in her chair to face the children, her lips tight like there was a situation.

          Lisa smoked, glad that her lungs were still there at least. She could still smoke and breathe and talk to her children. Last night she had worked it all out. The last time she’d eaten anything was the baby’s third month, the night before Lenny started on the big case. He’d brought home Chinese take-out and she’d picked at it, eaten some noodles.

          “I’ll be right back,” said Eileen, disappearing into her house. She returned a minute later with two drinks in tall, fancy cups, complete with paper umbrellas. “Just a little treat,” she said. “I know it’s early but sometimes you just need to relax.”

          Lisa took the drink and put it to her lips —  it smelled like pineapple —  but she lowered it again without taking a sip. If she didn’t have a stomach, where would it go?

          That night Lisa gave the children a bath. She piled them all in the tub at the same time with lots of bubbles and even got the camera out, snapped some pictures. Afterwards, she rubbed lotion all over them and dressed them in clean pajamas, then she sat in the kitchen and waited for them to fall asleep. Once they fell asleep, they almost never woke up again until morning.

          At ten o’clock, convinced they were deep in dreamland, Lisa got into the Buick and headed downtown. Even at night, the air was thick and hot and she rolled down her window, let her cigarette hang out. When she got to headquarters, she spent a couple minutes driving around before she saw Fran’s. It had a nice, large parking lot. She pulled in and killed the engine.

          Lenny and Rutger were sitting right by the window, briefcases open on chairs beside them, papers piled up on the table like it was their own living room. Lisa hoped the waitress hadn’t been exposed to the gruesome pictures, especially since she probably had to walk home alone at odd hours. Lisa rolled down the window on the passenger side as well, hoping for some kind of breeze, and lit another cigarette. She watched as the waitress came to the table to top up their coffee and take their plates, and ask them if they wanted anything else. Rutger nodded, pointed to something at the counter, then watched her ass as she walked away.

          Lisa got more comfortable in her seat, put her head back on the rest, and smoked. The waitress brought Rutger a piece of pie, then returned twenty minutes later to take away the plate. All this while Lisa watched, and thought about her body. She wondered which organ would be the next to go. It’s true that she wanted to keep her lungs. But she also wanted to keep her brain. A brain felt absolutely essential. So did a heart. She wondered how long she could live without a liver or a pancreas. It was possible, she realized, that they were already gone.

          She was starting to think that she should get back to the kids. Leave it to them to pick tonight to wake up, wander around the house looking for her. God forbid they would go outside. But there was a sudden movement in the diner that caught her eye. Lenny and Rutger were animated. They appeared to be shouting. Other customers glanced over. Lenny stood, pacing back and forth, then he stopped. His hands went to his temples, then his arms shot out wide, fingers splayed. On his face was an expression of jubilation. On Rutger’s too. A break in the case! A small, overlooked detail had suddenly gained meaning. Tremendous meaning. All these months, these countless, sleepless nights, all-night diners and all-day breakfasts, had culminated into a hard-won victory. Lenny and Rutger began to gather their things. They threw files into briefcases. There was no time to waste. A warrant must be acquired, middle of the night be damned.

          Well there you go, thought Lisa. She figured Lenny would be home in the morning, energized by his big break. If he and Rutger really managed to arrest the guy tonight, then surely Lenny would be with the family more often. At least until the next serial killer came around.

          Vaguely happy for Lenny, somewhat relieved for herself, and thinking she should get back to the kids, Lisa went to start the car. But just before she turned the key she noticed something. Lenny was bigger than she’d ever seen him and he was growing. She leaned forward, squinted her eyes. He was at least two feet taller than Rutger. And then he was three. Rutger seemed to notice as well but he wasn’t alarmed; neither was the waitress. It seemed to please the waitress, actually, to see Lenny grow. Now he was almost at the ceiling and he was growing outwards too, getting thick, turning into a giant. Lisa leaned her head out the window to get an unencumbered view just as Lenny plunged through the roof and shot up to the sky, finally stopping at three times the height of the restaurant. He’d broken through his clothes and was completely naked, his chest and abs chiselled, sharp and shiny as ice.

          Slowly so as not to draw attention, Lisa pulled her head back into the car. What could it possibly mean? Did her husband turn into a god right in front of her eyes? Did this happen regularly at the all-night diner? No wonder he never wanted to come home.

          She flicked her cigarette out the window and started the car, peeling out of the parking lot. She could tell that she still had a heart because it was pounding. It was pounding with loneliness and rage.

          Before she’d even unlocked the door, Lisa could hear the baby crying. She rushed down the hallway to the nursery and picked him up. There was no way of knowing how long he’d been awake, waiting for his mother.

          Lisa tossed her purse on the change table and sat down with the baby in the rocking chair next to the window. The curtains were wide open and Lisa could see the cloudless sky, empty except for the moon.

          The baby had really worked himself up in Lisa’s absence. Now, he would not acquiesce to her comfort. He continued to scream, and Lisa could not tell if he was looking right into her eyes or not looking at anything at all. She stretched out her hand and grabbed her purse, rustling inside for a cigarette and then her lighter, taking a long first drag and holding it in.

          She looked at the baby’s little body and marveled at its perfection, all the organs neatly tucked in there, functioning as they should. From here, he would only get bigger. Maybe even as big as his father.

          She exhaled and nothing came out. The smoke disappeared into her body.