Sugar Bear

Addiction is a family tradition.

My mom has always been relentlessly tidy in the kitchen. She still lectures me for being too splashy around the sink.

“I’d rather you didn’t do the dishes at all,” she says.

She hates it when I clean the carafe for the blender.

“You’re using way too much water!”

So it was with some alarm that I came inside one evening to find the kitchen in shambles. It wasn’t just crumbs scattered over the counter, but whole bits of bread. It looked like someone had just taken a couple of bites and tossed the crust with contempt. There was a great hunk of half-gnawed cheese. The peanut butter jar was askew. Likewise, the butter.

For a moment, I even imagined a passing bear had somehow gotten inside and had his way with the kitchen. Won’t mom be furious!

But maybe it was even worse. Maybe something terrible happened — Jesus, a stroke?

You can imagine my relief when I found mom laid flat on the couch.

“You did that?” I asked.

She nodded, sheepishly.

Then I saw the cookies on the table and it all came together.

We had just bought them hours earlier. And when we did, my mom stopped me from eating more than two.

“That’s the last one for you,” she said, waving her hand over the box. “Take your time. Enjoy them.”

Later, she said she wished I would eat more mindfully.

When I found her later that night, amid the devastated kitchen, she didn’t even want to get up from the couch. She had eaten at least nine cookies. She couldn’t control herself.

“Now, you know how it feels,” I said, “to be a crack addict.”

“Well, I have good intentions,” she replied.

“I know, mom. I know. We all do.”