The Ghost of Sunday Dinner

by Eve Morton

Cassandra was staring at the mashed potatoes when she saw the ghost for the first time. She was wondering whether or not to eat, like always. She thought back to Hamlet, studied in her makeshift classroom in the hospital, and rephrased that famous line as 'to eat or not to eat?' She laughed. She thought she was being clever.

That was when the ghost showed up. Straw-white hair, as if bleached. Bony, but then again, most of the girls she saw from Monday to Friday in the eating disorder clinic in downtown Toronto were bony. Barely 100 pounds, if that. Could ghosts have weights? What about ideal weights, current weights, and statistics that she and the other girls on the ward traded when the docs and counselors weren't looking? Cassandra's head was a mess of thoughts and her hunger made it hard to focus on anything but the calories of the dinner in front of her. Four hundred ninety-five. That's if the package is correct. This one looks heavier than the others in the grocery store. For a while, she didn't even care that something supernatural was happening to her.

She just cared about her weight. She cared about disobeying the doctors and counselors, proving them right and wrong at the same time as she continued to participate in her own eating disorder.

When the ghost disappeared, she dismissed it as nothing more than a fainting spell. She'd had those before. She threw out the rest of her dinner and went to bed early.

*

"You've lost weight," the counselor told her on the Monday weigh-in cycle. Her dark eyebrows narrowed and she tsk-tsk'd through her gap teeth. "Have you been following the meal plan?"

Cassandra didn't say anything. She stepped off the scale. She was naked under the hospital gown, so she couldn't weigh herself down artificially with rocks or water bottles. She started to slip on her jeans. She grabbed her socks.

"You'll have to speak to the doctor about this," the counselor said. "We need you to hit your goal weight before you ever leave here. Do you want to leave?"

"Yes."

"Then you need to gain weight. You need to, or you'll die. You do know what the mortality rate is for someone with an eating disorder, right? It's the highest among any mental illness."

Normally, Cassandra tuned out the guilt lectures on mortality and beauty image, but now she was interested. "Anyone ever die in this program?"

"Of course."

"What did she look like?"

"That's the wrong focus." The counselor sighed again before leaving the room. Cassandra dressed hurriedly, a chill creeping up the notches of her spine. Just before she shut the door, she remembered what the ghost had been wearing. A gown like she had, but there were stones sewed into the side.

*

The ghost finally spoke to her on the following weekend. Throughout the week, Cassandra had thought she'd seen her again, but the phantom turned out to be a new girl in the program with translucent skin from a lack of vitamins, a malfunctioning air conditioner, or her own lack of body heat making her tense up. As Cassandra microwaved a TV dinner that the dietician had approved, as long as she added a glass of milk to it to fill out the nutrients, she finally heard the ghost speak.

"You don't have milk."

"Because milk is terrible," she said, as if this was normal. The microwave beeped. Steam wafted up from her food and made the ghost seem mundane, rather than spooky. "What's your name?"

"Jenny."

Cassandra huffed. "Everyone's named Jenny. Or Emily. We've had like six of them so far in the program. That's so boring."

The ghost didn't say anything. Cassandra sat at the table while Jenny floated in the kitchen. Her feet did not touch the ground. She was see-through. She was a real ghost, whatever that meant. Cassandra twirled her fork through the chicken dinner, not bringing it to her mouth. "What was your final weight?"

"You don't want to know that."

"Why do people keep telling me what I want?" She pushed the food away. "I don't want anything."

"You do, but you think you can't have it."

"Is that what happened to you?"

The ghost didn't say anything. Cassandra was worried she'd leave--she seemed to get more transparent, thinner by the second--and so she kicked out a chair at the table. "Come and sit."

The ghost didn't move. "Where is your family?"

"This is a boring conversation." When the ghost still didn't respond, Cassandra shrugged. "Maybe the casino? A friend's house? I don't know."

"But they take you to the hospital," she said. "They care about you."

"I take the subway there. And I'm only there because I'm sixteen and can't check myself out without their permission, and this seemed like a gold mine to them. Someone else is responsible for me now. Huzzah. Let's party."

"You are responsible for you."

Cassandra huffed again. "Says a ghost. Were you that responsible if you're dead now? Clearly not."

"I left," the ghost said. "You assume I died there, but I left."

"The treatment wasn't very effective then, was it. Knew it. Those docs don't know how to treat us. After all, eating disorders do have the highest mortality rate. Why should I bother listening to you?"

"I was hit by a car."

"Oh."

"Yeah. I wasn't even sneaking exercise or anything like that. It was just an accident. Nothing malicious. So I don't understand," she added. "Why you're there. Why any of them are there. You could be free but you're not"

Cassandra groaned. "Oh, please. Do not give me a lecture. I'm sick of them. We're there because there's nothing else better to do during the week. And we got caught. And we..." Cassandra thought of the other girls' stories. Some were like her, bitter and obstinate against the rules for the sake of it, while others were simply scared. They wanted to go home again. They lost weight by mistake or had now learned that they no longer wanted to be bones upon bones, but had to wait their turn to reach their goal weight.

Cassandra didn't know what she wanted. She didn't say anything else.

"If you want," Jenny said. "I can eat with you."

"You can't eat."

"Okay."

Jenny disappeared. Cassandra felt the emptiness inside the room like a punch to her stomach. It rumbled. The sound was like a dog growling, like someone scratching against the backdoor. When she brought the fork to her mouth, the food was cold.

She threw it out.

*

She didn't lose any weight come Monday. She didn't gain any either, which should have been happening. A different counselor, one with dark skin and eyes, marked the number down without remark. Then she left Cassandra alone in the room. As she put on her clothing again, she realized the gown had been stitched with stones. It had weighted her down. She didn't know, didn't intend for that, but it had happened.

She debated going back to get the counselor. She wasn't intentionally lying--but they would think she was. They always thought she was. It was so much easier to lie half the time than to be accused of it. When an icy chilled hand reached over her mouth, she understood that telling the truth as it stood right now was not worth that risk.

And so, for once, she listened.

*

On the Friday weigh-in, she'd gained weight. She'd not been eating as much during the week and exercising when she was at home at night and her parents were gone, so it was another surprise. She checked out her stats at home that Friday, and realized the scales displayed two different numbers.

In the hospital, she was gaining. But in reality, she was losing.

She said nothing to anyone.

This continued on for two more weeks. Cassandra realized she could do whatever she wanted. She needed to follow the rules during the day at the hospital, sure, but the counselors were no longer watching her as closely. Other problems emerged and took their attention. No one questioned her weekends, her evenings. She got to lose weight, still wearing her goal jeans, but also received all the praise from the doctors for gaining. It was as if everyone else had body dysmorphia, but they saw her as getting healthier, while she knew the reality.

"This is very promising," Dr. Brown, the head physician in the program, told her four weeks into this sudden transition. "You should be able to go home next week. You'll be at your goal weight."

"That's great," Cassandra said. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. Harsh, like dead air from her throat.

"Your parents will be happy, right? They've been good to follow the meal plan on the weekends?"

Cassandra nodded. It was easier than lying. The rest of the meeting went well, right down to the weigh in, where the scale displayed the seemingly impossible number of a healthy BMI, while she could still feel her ribs and spine against the plastic chairs in the hospital classroom and group therapy.

"Fantastic," the doctor said. "Just fantastic."

Come Friday, Cassandra was having her last dinner in the program. There was some fanfare--a goodbye speech from some of the worst counselors, the most aggressive in their proselytizing and guilt tripping--and then some shaky hugs from the other patients. Not even their bony arms seemed to be able to detect her bones anymore.

She left the program doors for the last time. While other girls were picked up by their parents in minivans, and driven to nice suburban homes, she was alone. She got on the subway, opened her apartment with a key that had lived around her neck since twelve, and stepped inside.

No one was home.

It felt like no one would ever be home again.

*

On Sunday night, Jenny came back. Cassandra was relieved. She'd not eaten since Friday, just to see if anything would happen. Nothing ever did, not until she walked into the kitchen and flicked on the light. Jenny was at the table.

"Hi," Cassandra said. She walked to the freezer and got one of those meals. She opened the fridge, before Jenny could say anything, and poured herself a glass of milk.

Jenny stayed quiet at the table. Cassandra ate two bites of the lasagna and felt a wave of hunger. Real hunger, true hunger, the kind that the hospital stifled with plans and with numbers. The kind that she felt now as a sudden quest for life beyond this dark apartment and the ghosts of a former hospital stay.

"I still don't like milk," Cassandra said when she'd finished the meal. "I might get almond or oat or something instead."

"Sure," Jenny said. She smiled. "Sounds like a good plan."

END

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