Free Eating Memories by Patricia Anthony

Sometimes he tossed the ball overhead, sometimes underarm; but always athletically, His smile was fixed and determined, a glued-on smile.
    Four yards from the father the son stood, a fat post, catching the ball only if it came directly into his hands. Otherwise he would let it go past him and then amble, not jog, after. The boy’s face was utterly somber, morean expression for school-work than for games.
    The mother sat in her long, white dress as if she were attending a social day at the races. It was a family painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Only the boy seemed sane.
    The father’s smile failed, becoming the grin of a man who was weary of pumping gladness into a leaking container. He tossed the ball to the boy’s right, just far enough so that his son would have to jump to catch it. The boy didn’t. He stood, his sorrowful eyes following the ball’s bright path. After it had stopped, he trudged towards it, picked it up, walked back to his prescribed place and took up the game again.
    The father’s frown came on with the menace of a spring squall. With a snap he flung the ball hard into his son’s moon face.
    The boy never put up his hands to ward it away. He never ducked. The ball hit with a smack that I imagined I could hear even through the double-paned windows.
    And time paused.
    The three became statues of themselves. Rage and hot blood drained from the father’s face. The mother hesitated, her iced tea glass halfway to her perfect lips. His hand to his nose, the boy stood, stunned. In gay bounces, the ball dribbled away across the jade green lawn.
    Then time resumed. The boy turned to follow the rolling ball. Reaching it, he picked it up carefully. He walked back to his spot, crooked his awkward elbows and tossed the ball in a gentle, high rounded arc back into his father’s hands as if nothing of importance had happened.
    * * *
    “Did you enjoy the visit?” I asked the boy.
    He glanced up, his neck craning. Tall and stooped, I towered over the boy like a recombinant vulture.
    The boy’s eyes fell, “Sure.”
    “We need to talk about it. How do you feel about your father? How do you feel about your mother? It’s important if you ever want to get well.”
    “I don’t know them well enough to feel anything,” he said.
    There is a residual effect from the Thanapeline, an odd one that makes the boy seem like an adult. When he died the last time, he’d been fifty-three years old.
    “Can we have some ice cream now?” he asked.
    And then, sometimes, he acts like ten.
    * * *
    “That’s him?” Carleton asked as he looked through the one way glass.
    I nodded. Bobby was intent on a game of War. His thumbs pressed manically and with an exacting rhythm on the pads. The speaker was open, and I could hear the BEEP-BEEP as he scored. Average juvenile hand-eye coordination. In a moment, the game won, he put the unit down. Average juvenile attention span. He looked over at us and I imagined he could see me. I wondered what he was thinking. Not much, apparently. He began to pick his nose.
    Carleton glanced away. “As far as I’m concerned, the eating disorder’s caused by the parents. The father is disappointed in his son, his son sees it, the son overeats.”
    “It’s not just overeating,” I told him. “He ravishes his food. Sometimes he puts so much into his mouth that he can’t chew. When he eats we have to station someone in the room with him that knows the Heimlich maneuver. In the two months he’s been in the hospital, he’s choked twelve times.”
    Carleton shrugged. “Food’s always been symbolic of love. Ask any fat man.”
    I put my palms to the glass. It was cold and hard and insensitive. Bobby was listlessly picking through his toys. High normals usually had a problem with boredom.
    “The eating disorder dates from infancy. Check with the pediatrician if you don’t believe me,” I said.
    After a moment Carleton sat down in one of the institutional mauve chairs. His fingers tapped the folder