My Cousin Marie

Chapter 1

People tend to raise an eyebrow whenever I talk about my cousin Marie. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: Marie and I are not actually related by blood.

Our families have always been so close, to the extent that nobody ever really bothered making the distinction. We were, by all accounts, family. Her dad has always been my Uncle Peter, her mom, my Aunt Patricia.

So naturally, she was my Cousin Marie, and I was her cousin Michael.

We grew up together, ever-present in one another's lives for as long as I can recall. Holidays, birthdays, and cookouts in the summertime were all shared events between her family and mine. Some of my earliest memories involve my family making the trip to the Donnegan house just outside of town, spending summers playing in the backyard, joking around and eating hotdogs and ice cream with Marie, while the adults sat on lawn chairs drinking beer and talking for hours.

Every Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Easter, our families would crowd around the same long dinner table, year after year, until it all blurred together into one giant memory of food, noise, and laughter.

To me, Marie was nothing more than the girl who chased me around the yard with a garden hose in the summer, who stole extra cookies off my plate when she thought nobody was looking, who laughed louder than anybody else in the room. We fought sometimes, like real cousins did, teased each other constantly, and spent so much time together that I honestly never gave any of it a second thought-at least, not at first.



Marie and I were only a few months apart in age. We went to different schools, but we were always in the same grade year at the same time. Sometime around when we were twelve, that's when the way I looked at Marie started to change. Marie began filling out a little, getting a bit softer and plumper around the middle. Her cheeks looked rounder and pudgier, her hips a little wider. Every few months she seemed just a tiny bit heavier than before.

At first I thought it was funny more than anything else. Marie had always loved food, even when we were little kids. She was the one sneaking extra brownies off the dessert tray at family parties, or hovering around the kitchen asking when dinner would finally be ready. The adults used to laugh about it constantly.

"That little girl of yours really likes her chow," I can remember my father saying jokingly.

"Oh my God, she's like a bottomless pit," her mother replied. "It's like I can never keep her full at home."

It seemed harmless and cute. Her belly started pressing tightly against the front of her shirts, and her thighs started looking thicker in her tight jeans. She'd often flop down into a chair after we'd eaten dinner with this heavy little sigh while everybody else kept talking around her-and for reasons I couldn't possibly have explained at that age, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about her all the time.

That Christmas was the first time I remember genuinely being stunned by her appetite. As usual, our families were doing things big-the dining room table was totally overloaded with food: giant bowls of mashed potatoes swimming in butter, trays of rolls, mountains of stuffing, glazed ham, turkey, pies cooling on every available surface in the kitchen. The adults treated meals like events, sitting around the table for hours talking loudly over one another while everybody kept going back for more.

I made a point of sitting beside Marie that year, so that I could get a front-row view of her ravenous face-stuffing. I barely paid attention to anybody else at the table because I couldn't stop watching her eat.

She really was just like a bottomless pit.

Forkful after forkful disappeared into her mouth almost mechanically, barely any pause between bites. She ate faster than everybody else at the table, cleaning her plate while the adults were still halfway through theirs, then immediately helping herself to more. Another spoonful of potatoes. Another buttered roll. Thick slabs of ham drenched in gravy. I watched her shovel stuffing into her mouth with this look of complete concentration that I found weirdly mesmerizing.

Nobody else seemed to think much of it. The adults were too busy talking and laughing with one another to notice just how much food she was putting away.

"You kids get enough to eat?" I can remember my mom asking us, glaring at Marie and I from the far end of the table.

"Yes, ma'am," I replied.

Marie didn't speak-she simply nodded her head and licked her lips before lifting her fork to shovel more food down her throat. Seated beside her, feeling almost hypnotized, I couldn't look away.

I remember looking down at her rounded belly, laid out in her lap beneath the table. Every time she reached for something else to eat, her sweater pulled tighter across her middle. By the end of dinner her cheeks were flushed pink, and she kept letting out these heavy little breaths between bites, but she still didn't stop.

I was at a loss to explain just how excited it made me feel. At twelve years old, I didn't have the language for any of it yet. I only knew that I couldn't take my eyes off her.

Marie was getting fat, there was no way of getting around it. She wasn't just a little chubby the way some kids would get before a big growth spurt. She was getting genuinely heavier, month by month, in a way that was becoming impossible not to notice. Her stomach was getting rounder, her face fuller, her body softer all over. Every family gathering seemed to reveal some new change in her-and I was absolutely fascinated.

As far as I could tell, Marie seemed to be perfectly content with the changes she was going through. She laughed louder than anybody else in the room, and she ate more than anybody else at the table. Of course, she could hear the comments that the adults were saying about her, calling her an eating machine or chow hound. It didn't seem to faze her at all; she'd just roll her eyes and keep eating. There was something almost shameless about the way she enjoyed food that fascinated me even back then.

Of course, I teased her about it a bit at first, the way that immature boys would often do.

"You're gonna eat all of that yourself?"

"You seriously want another piece?"

"Marie, where are you even putting it all?"

She'd just smirk at me and say something like, "Mind your business, Michael," before taking another huge bite of whatever she was stuffing her face with at the moment.

By the time dessert rolled around that night, Marie had by far eaten more than anybody else at the table. I honestly couldn't believe she was still going.

My mother had put out five different pies that year: apple, blueberry, cherry, chocolate cream, and lemon meringue. Most of the adults took one slice, maybe two if they were really indulging themselves after dinner.

Marie had a slice of each pie, and had barely finished what was on her plate before reaching for more.

I remember staring at her in disbelief as she loaded another enormous wedge of apple pie onto her plate, adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream beside it for good measure. The adults around us were deep in conversation by then, laughing loudly about something one of my uncles had said, paying absolutely no attention to either of us.

Marie noticed me staring and smirked.

"What?" she asked before taking another bite.

I shook my head, laughing under my breath. "You're gonna explode if you keep stuffing yourself."

Then, without really thinking about it, I reached over and gave her belly a playful little pat beneath the table. There was a soft weight to her tightly stretched abdomen as it rested beneath the fabric of her sweater, taut, warm, and full from everything she'd eaten. My hand only touched her for a second, maybe less, but something about doing so sent this strange jolt through me that I'd never felt before in my life.

Marie let out a breathy little laugh. "Oh, shut up, Michael," she teased, swatting my arm away halfheartedly before immediately taking another bite of pie.

In that moment, sitting beside her at twelve years old with the noise of Christmas dinner all around us, something inside me had suddenly clicked into place.

I liked this.

I liked watching her eat.

I liked seeing how full she got.

I liked how soft and heavy she was becoming-and more than anything, I realized I wanted to see what would happen next.