Chapter 3

The next night, Brady had come home with three pizzas: meatlovers, pepperoni, and cheese; he had also stopped and bought a box of frozen buffalo wings and some cauliflower bites. He balanced everything on a case of beer. Sam had offered to craft a quick salad to accompany. She was wearing her favourite pair of grey sweats and a large Billie Eilish shirt; Brady left his work clothes in the mudroom and immediately slipped into his boxer shorts and a raggedy old Carharrt shirt. He never wore pants on Friday nights.
They had settled on a meal-and-movie night on the couch. Brady had used his pizza box for a plate, taking a little of each flavour and dumping the salad greens and chicken wings on the other side. The newlyweds ended up watching a double feature, and slowly picking at the food from the hours of 6pm to 11pm. Sam was surprised at just how snackish she was, the Superbowl-esque platter of food spread before her eyes. She wasn’t even aware of her appetite, the food was just there, and so she just…ate it.
At the conclusion of the second film, Brady stood up to grab another beer. “What about…nachos?” He made finger guns. Sam laughed and said yes.
They fell asleep in each other’s arms on the couch that night, the baking tray of nachos half finished atop the pile of pizza boxes and empty beer cans.
When Sam awoke that Saturday morning, she remembers starting to clean up and picking at the nachos while she did. Tackling the garbage and the empties, she munched on the stale chips and hard cheese – when she went to throw them away, she found that she had polished them off for breakfast.
And so, that’s how their weekend went. It was true that Brady had relaxed and was eating how he used to – Sam had known him all through the football years and these were his usual habits. A man of his size and muscle needed four or five full meals a day to maintain his figure. He went to the gym on Saturdays and Sundays, and they had agreed to try the local brewery in town. They got a bunch of fingers foods and stopped for burgers on the way back. They split a tub of ice cream in the hot tub that night, Brady taking the majority but even spoon feeding Sam like an airplane on one occasion.
Come Sunday night, Sam felt like she couldn’t even look at a carbohydrate. All she wanted was soup, or a salad, or maybe even just some saltines. But Brady had spent all day preparing a lasagne the size of a small family van. He was so excited to cook for her, and even bought a fancy bottle of wine to accompany the Caesar salad and garlic bread. There was a part of her that kept remembering the shame on his face that night in bed, like he was embarrassed to require so much sustenance. This weekend had been above and beyond what she normally consumed, but she knew she needed to put on a good show to make sure Brady felt okay and knew she was accepting of his needs. She didn’t want her beautiful man to think he was doing something wrong by simply giving his body what it needs.
The problem was, with Brady serving the food and determining the portion sizes, he was not taking into account their different weight classes. The meal size he set for himself was what he served his beautiful wife, as well. That Sunday evening, each component of the meal required its own plate: the lasagna, the salad, the bread, and what felt like half a bottle of wine in her glass. She looked up and smiled at her giddy husband, proud of his handiwork and slightly buzzed from the Manhattan cocktail recipe he had found for them online. He was so joyous and funny again, not the burnt out stressed man that had been hyper fixated on their wedding and their move and their mortgage payments. Something about food brought back the boy she first met at a party in high school, the silly goofy man that could fill a room with his laugh and stop anyone in their tracks with a single look. Sam really loved the bones of Brady Munroe, and was happy to be sitting across from him again at dinner.
She was thankful she had spent almost the entire weekend in sweatpants. It took her twice as long to get through the meal as it did him, but she did it. And it was so, so good. Sam was impressed, her husband had really pulled out the stops. The layers of cheese, the rich sauce, the thick sheets of pasta…it was to die for.
As he cleared the table and poured her more wine, Sam thought to herself that she was happy he would be at work again tomorrow, and she could reduce her intake for a few hours once again. That weekend, if a doctor had kept track, they would have told Samantha Munroe that her caloric intake was nearly quadruple what she required for her height and age. But, she didn’t think about that when he rounded the corner of the kitchen with ice cream cake.
Instead, she accepted his offer to drizzle caramel sauce on the massive slab he had cut out for her.