To Poach an Egg.
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Women, Depression, Fiction, Food, Short Story

To Poach an Egg.

On learning what you like.

Photo by leanncaptures on Unsplash

She hadn’t cooked in a week. She had just been spilling lettuce into a bowl and drowning it in dressing. She had not had a hot meal.

She made an egg. She was unenthusiastic about it, but she knew if she didn’t cook, didn’t shower, didn’t eat…that they would label her as depressed again. So she acted, not because she was happy, but out of spite. She didn’t want that label. Not after, finally, she had cast it off.

Cooking for one felt like a joke. She loved cooking eggs for a group. The pan would grow hot and each one would be perfect. They sizzled as soon as they opened.

The first egg never came out well.

But now, without anyone else to cook for, she just had that first shitty egg. And there was no reason to cook another one, because it was just her.

She wanted a big group of people to laugh and have eggs and toast with. And then she wanted them to disappear so she could have her alone time. She didn’t want to plan play dates, get anyone dressed, change any diapers.

She wanted to be the dad.

The dad got to cook and not clean, the dad had to dart to the office at a moment’s notice. The dad was always excused. The dad needed to only have fun when he got home, because he was under such stress at work…that unnamed, unfathomable stress that, no matter what, was more grueling than anything the mother had to do at home.

Yes, she thought. She would have loved to have been a dad.

But now, that wasn’t how things worked. Now, both parents had to work. The dad was upset he could not be the dad in the way his dad had been the dad. The mom was upset that, still, she could not be the dad the way her dad had been the dad. And so on. Now, there was bitterness on both sides, not just on one.

Working, she thought, was the biggest scam. Insurance. Everything. She didn’t want to see it fall apart. She wanted to skip to the part of the story where society had a new and better order. She didn’t want to see all the disappointment, the bitterness, the rage. Just thinking of those things caused a twinge in her soul.

She hated confrontation. She hated seeing things fall apart. She hated seeing people realize they would never get what they wanted. Never be happy.

That was a fate she was okay with, but she wasn’t okay with the world being that way for everyone.

There she was, alone. She had her egg. It was overcooked. She couldn’t really dunk her toast into it.

That was an old habit. Her daughter had a sensitive stomach and couldn’t stand runny eggs. So she always made them hard for her.

“Can’t you make a few that are runny, for me?” Her dad would say. Then he would run off to work and leave her to clean runny eggs off his plate. She stopped making them special for him. All of the eggs were overcooked.

Now and forever.

She thought about it. How did she like her eggs? Did she like them runny or hard? She hadn’t thought about that in years.

Poached, she decided. Then she realized she didn’t even know how to poach an egg. She had only ever eaten a poached egg at a restaurant.

How hard could it be?

And shouldn’t she finally learn how to make the eggs she liked to eat?

She watched a video. The colors were so bright. The egg, perfect, and on the first try. And the egg was never by itself in the photos. There were photos of eggs Benedict with potatoes, over smoked salmon, resting atop chickpeas.

It looked so exhausting.

She had to do it, though. If she didn’t, then she was depressed. Then the depression would win. Then she would need medication again.

If she didn’t poach a damn egg.

If she didn’t make eggs the way she wanted. Everyone should have eggs the way they wanted them. Especially if they were the one cooking.

When she got divorced, her husband said that the same dark jokes that had attracted him to her eventually pushed him away. He said she had gotten more bitter.

But she knew that wasn’t the issue. When they met, she was young and beautiful, with a dark sense of humor. That was edgy. Then she had gotten older, but she was still dark. That made her just a bitter middle-aged woman. Nothing edgy about that.

In fact, it was considered rather plain.

What had been called spunk and edginess was now bitterness, a disdain for life, a man-repellent.

She watched the directions again. She would do it. She would try.

But she would take a nap first. Making the first egg was enough. And she wasn’t hungry…she knew she should be, but she wasn’t.

That part of the so-called depression was fine. In fact, she was applauded for it.

“You’re so thin. What’s your secret?” What she couldn’t provide in joy, she could make up for with thinness.

When she woke up, she would need to eat again. And then she would do it. And she would find other things she liked, and maybe she would do them, too.

She smiled to herself. Finally.