During our first meal together that summer, it was evident: something had changed. After spending all day cooking our favorite meal, home made Italian sauce, meatballs, spaghetti, garlic bread and salad, there was no response when she walked in the door. Usually as soon as Meg smelled my Italian sauce she would say, “Oh the kitchen smells so wonderful. Can I taste the sauce; can I steal a meatball?” But she said nothing.
Traditionally when we have a spaghetti dinner, I always filled our dishes from the stove, but Meg asked to fill her own plate for the first time. I watched as she artfully placed about ten strands of spaghetti, a tablespoon of sauce and one small meatball around her plate so they took up as much room as possible. She claimed she’d eaten during the ride home. At my prompting, she had what amounted to three tablespoons of salad, no dressing or garlic bread.
It was painful to witness Meg as she rearranged the food on her plate to mimic eating. She acted as if she’d rather be anywhere else in the world but at our kitchen table eating her formerly favorite meal. Since it was her first meal at home, I hated to start nagging. But what I had thought would be a celebration, of Meg’s return home from college and the beginning of summer, turned into the first meal of our summer of combat.
The next morning Meg wanted to go summer job hunting, since the New England schools got out later than the schools in the South, and she was afraid all the good jobs would be taken. When I asked her what she wanted for breakfast, she said she’d get something on the way. She wanted to get an early start. Meg came home after lunch discouraged; there were no jobs, never mind good jobs. She said she went all over but many businesses wouldn’t even let her fill out an application. It was 1991, during President George H. W. Bush’s administration, and the economy was terrible like ours is now due to his son.
People who had well-paid careers were working at jobs that were normally taken by high school or college kids. Meg said she had eaten out and now wanted to go to the base gym. I felt obliged to go with her to prevent her from working out too hard, suspecting she hadn’t eaten lunch or maybe even breakfast. I could tell by her face that Meg didn’t like it, but she didn’t say anything. It had always been our habit to go for a muffin after working out, but this time I ordered a muffin for myself and she nibbled at it like a little bird pecking at a too-large hunk of bread. What came next? The dreaded dinner meal.
Meg stubbornly stuck to her insistence on eating just a few tablespoons of food. And when I confronted her at the table with the fact that I only saw her eat a few crumbs today, that’s when it happened. Our first kitchen table battle in two years, culminating with three upset stomachs and a wasted meal. Now, neither Joe nor I liked fighting at the table, so this was stressful for all us. And we already had years of kitchen table battles when Meg was overweight. But these battles only lasted about two weeks before Joe contacted his friend, a psychologist, who recommended another doctor who specialized in young adult issues.
Again Meg resented having to go to see a psychologist. But this time she didn’t go in alone. This doctor required that the family attend the first two sessions. At least now Joe and I could tell our truth about what was going on. I liked his man’s quiet manner. He didn’t reach any fast conclusions like the other psychologist. Meg must have liked him too because she didn’t fight going to him. We also set up appointments with a nutritionist. I accompanied her to the first appointment, where the young female nutritionist explained to Meg about how much protein, oil and carbohydrates our bodies need to keep functioning.
As a result, Meg started eating beans, rice and corn instead of meat; she also ate some fish and eggs, but she still had a problem with oil. So I started slipping a little olive oil on the salad before I put it on the table with the bottles of salad dressing. However, the books I read on anorexia said not to cook anything special, but the authors hadn’t met Meg. If I didn’t cook something she thought was dietetic, she would either not eat and then the battle would ensue or eat and then go exercise it off. It didn’t help that Meg still hadn’t found a job and had all day to devise ways to work off her food.
However, Meg’s unemployment didn’t last much longer. One evening, our wonderful neighbor Cindy came over to visit and see how Meg was doing; she and Meg were great friends. This lovely Southern woman embraced our family, we children of the North, with her authentic Christian charity and love as soon as we moved to VA the summer before. When Meg complained about not finding a job, Cindy told her of an opening at the local hospital’s fitness center that she belonged to. I thought to myself, well isn’t that just perfect. The job consisted of greeting people, handing out towels and billing. Since I wasn’t really expecting Meg to get the job, I didn’t say anything.
Of course, Meg got the job. My status as family prophetess was officially terminated right then and there. But I had a question for Meg: Did fitness center privileges come with the job? Meg said, “Are you kidding Mom. Do you know how much it costs to belong? And all the hospital workers have privileges so it’s really crowded.” I still didn’t think it was a good idea that she be in that environment, but I rationalized at least now she wouldn’t have so much time to exercise. And I thought since the majority of the clients at the fitness center were medical professionals, maybe they would have a good influence on her. So we allowed her to take the job.
Regrettably, this decision is one of my biggest mistakes and the source of profound guilt, because I should have known that Meg was — well, not lying — but only telling me just enough. She was right: She didn’t get full fitness center privileges with the job, but she was allowed to use the equipment. In the Catholic religion, this is called a lie of omission, and Meg was good at those. I should have checked it out, but I didn’t belong to the fitness center. Sadly, I only found out that Meg was allowed to use the equipment all these years later when I was interviewing Cindy a few weeks ago for this article. This was the beginning of Meg’s serious lying. The lying that never ended.