BEEF HEARTS TRIMMED OF FAT, BRAISED

Do we have anything to eat? he asked.

There’s some cornflakes, I said. In the cupboard.

He got the box of cornflakes and poured some into a bowl. He poured a little milk onto them. He stood holding the bowl with one hand, and with the other, he got a spoon. He dug in.

These are terrible, he shouted.

I can’t hear you, I said.

They’re completely stale, he said. Ugh, they’re really bad.

He finished the flakes in the bowl, then finished the flakes in the box and flattened the box and rinsed the bowl and set it by the sink.

Later he said, I’m still hungry. Why don’t we have anything to eat in this house?

There’s plenty to eat, I said.

Like what, for example? he said.

Just look, I said. Just look around.

Then I heard him opening and closing doors and drawers. There was the light suctioning sound of the refrigerator and freezer.

After a while, he came to where I was, holding a foil-wrapped bar to his mouth. He gripped the unwrapped end between his teeth and grimaced. The bar—brown, dense, lightly flecked—would not give way.

He tossed it into the small waste bin in the corner, where it made a loud sound when it struck.

Where did you even find that? I asked.

You hid it from me, he said, a long time ago, and then you forgot about it. That’s what I think.

Why would I do that? I said. But I often hid things from him, because if I didn’t, he would eat everything all at once, in a single day—in one sitting, even.

At that moment, for example, I had a sack of cashews in my underwear drawer, an unopened bag of pretzel rods in an empty shoebox at the back of the bedroom closet, three chocolate bars folded into the kitchen towels in the pantry, and a large, costly wedge of aged cheese wrapped in cloth in an unused corner of the unheated basement, where I crept with a knife when he was in the bathroom or occupied by the television.

When we dined out, we dined exclusively at all-you-can-eat establishments. You got your table—then, without even sitting down, you approached the food arrayed beneath the hot flood of gold light. Here were spiny creatures carted up from the bottom of the ocean. Here were the most succulent sections of a whole herd of ungulates and run-of-the-mill vegetables and fruits prepared in ways you’d never trouble with at home. You made your selection, and it gave you a sense of yourself. No one’s plate looked like yours.

I ate quickly. In the end, however, I never ate much. I would finish in a matter of minutes, but he ate much more slowly, chewing thoughtfully, a distance runner.

Are you done, really? he would ask.

Yes, I would say. I’m very full.

I would sit drinking ice water while he went back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth plate of food.