The Choice of His Life

He sat, staring indecisively at the dessert cart. This was always his toughest decision - does he choose the cannoli or the eclair? His mother stared at him, disapprovingly. Charles’ weight had always been a problem for him, even before he was born.

Fran had never liked her son, her youngest. She had wanted to stop at two, but her husband insisted on a third. She tried to resist but there was that one drunken night in New York City and nine months later, here’s Charles.

The rest of the family sensed what was coming. The inevitable argument, the storming out of the restaurant by his father, Marty. The two sisters, Beth and Janet, staring uneasily at their folded hands in their laps.

“Well, what are you going to choose?” Fran asked her son in the hostile manner to which Charles had become accustomed. The waiter shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other and looked away.

Charles glared at his mother, who glared right back. Beth and Janet exchanged quick glances, not wanting to switch their mother’s wrath from Charles to themselves. That never happened, of course, but why take a chance, they thought.

Charles’ many therapists, many of whom he liked, had explained to him about fat shaming and to not let it get to him. At 23, he thought he would be over this by now. But it ate at him, gnawed at him like a starving dog trying to suck the last bit of marrow out of a bone. 

He fidgeted his hands, rolling one palm into the other as the decision loomed. His face was sweaty, his stomach doing loop-de-loops as his anxiety started to overwhelm him. 

“I..I..could just come back,” the waiter said, trying to ease the tension.

“You will stay right there, young man,” the mother said sternly, her gravelly voice reflecting the years of smoking. “Little Charles will make his decision soon,” she said, mockingly, the contemptuous tone meant to harm, to hurt.

The waiter, unsure of what to do, simply shifted his weight again, silent. He glanced around and saw the other patrons look up and peek around uneasily with some actually seeming eager, waiting for a scene.

Charles, looking again at the dessert tray, now noticed the profiteroles, adding to his indecision. He wanted all three, of course. His father rose from his seat and announced, “Nature calls,” wanting to escape the situation as quickly as possible, trying to find respite in the men’s room. The chair scraped loudly on the parquet floor.

It’s not like Charles didn’t want to lose weight...he knew the risks. High blood pressure, diabetes, the whole laundry list of conditions that would lead to his eventual demise that his various doctors had felt compelled to recite to him each time he had an appointment.

He tried many things, from the tried-and-true weight loss programs to the new, app-based ones. From hypnosis to meditation. Nothing worked for him. It was recommended to him to have gastric bypass surgery, but the thought of someone cutting into him abhorred him.

He looked up only to see his mother glaring at him once again. He looked at the waiter who smiled uncomfortably and shrugged his shoulders slightly. The two sisters were gone and he never saw them leave. Perhaps they had gone to the restroom as well, having witnessed situations like this often enough.

“Charles,” she began, the raspiness of her voice sounding like a grater against bare skin. “Charles, dear, you can’t keep this boy waiting,” she said.

“I know, Mom, I know,” he said dejectedly, expecting more wrath forthcoming. 

“Ma’am, perhaps I could recommend my favorite,” the waiter, barely older than Charles but about a third of his weight, said, trying to defuse the increasingly tense situation.

“No, that won’t do,” she replied. “Charlie here,” she continued, jerking her thumb at him, “needs to make this decision on his own.”

The waiter, who desperately wanted to escape like the rest of the family had done before him, simply nodded and stood in place, his hands, now almost as sweaty as Charles’, gripped the handle of the dessert cart tightly.

Anxiety coursed through Charles’ body. His stomach churned and his head pounded as the standoff between mother and son continued. His mother smirked at her only son. Charles lowered his eyes and looked downward at the small, white plate on the table in front of him, light reflecting off the dessert fork, placed horizontally facing right, as etiquette dictated.

“Charlie…” his mother said, continuing to ridicule him. The diners at the other tables close to theirs were getting very uneasy, many trying to continue the conversations with their respective families, business partners, and dates but finding it increasingly difficult to do so. 

“Yes, Mother?” Charles replied through gritted teeth, trying his best to maintain his composure. 

The waiter made an attempt to leave, but Charles’ mother gestured for him to stay and the waiter obeyed as if she were his own mother. Silence enveloped the restaurant, the normal banter coming to an absolute halt. Charles wondered where his father and sisters were.

“I have an idea, Charles,” she said, standing up. “Why don’t you choose ALL of them, hmm?” she asked, waving her hand in front of the dessert cart like a model on a game show. “It’s not like that you’ve never done that before,” she continued.

Charles’s mother was gaunt and emaciated, a wisp of a woman caused by starvation, cigarettes, and genetics and certainly not by any healthy habits.

She turned to the crowd, who were now staring at the tableau before them, fascinated. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to my only son, Charles,” she said, waving her hand in front of him. “He needs to make a decision and he can’t,” she continued. Turning to Charles, now, “Why is that, Charlie?”

“Why are you doing this to him?” a girl about Charles’ age cried out from a distant table.

She turned in the direction of the unnamed voice. “You, there,” she called out to the girl, pointing at her. 

“Mother, stop,” Charles said softly to his tormentor. “Please.”

His mother turned to him. “Why, Charlie? Am I embarrassing you? As if your weight isn’t embarrassing enough,” she said, disgusted. “Just look at you.” Turning to the crowd, she said, “Look at him.”

“Leave him alone!” the girl shouted again.

“Oh, Charlie, look, you have a fangirl!”

“Ma’am, if you could just take your seat,” the restaurant manager said, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, gently taking her elbow, trying to guide her back to her seat.

“Don’t you touch me!” she growled at the manager. “Don’t you ever touch me!” she shouted, taking her wrath out, at least temporarily, on the man. Looking back to Charlie, “Now, see what you’ve done?”

Charles, palms clammy, forehead sweating, gripped the table tightly with two hands. Years of scorn from his mother, his ill-chosen “friends” at school, and others, had taken their toll. Charles rose to his full height, his hands now at his side, and pointed his thick forefinger at his mother.

“ENOUGH!” he shouted. “ENOUGH, Mother,” he said, using the same derisive tone previously used by her on him. “Enough of you. Enough of your taunts, enough of your insults, enough...enough of YOU!” he continued.

He slammed his heavy hand down hard on the table so that the silverware, the half-filled glasses of wine and water, the small vase of miniature flowers, all jumped in deference to Charles’ newfound courage.

He walked towards her, his voice growing bolder with every step as the restaurant patrons stared at him in awe. “Enough of your paltry, little insignificant life, enough...just, just enough of YOU!” he shouted at his mother as she, unused to the confidence that Charles now displayed, cowered before him. He stood over her, his face red, perspiring, his heart pumping fast. His mother opened her mouth slightly. He glared at her. “Don’t you dare say another word,” he said slowly and methodically, enunciating each syllable deliberately.

His mother, silenced, sat back in her chair, and hung her head down in defeat. His father, who stood in the aisle leading from the restrooms, looked proudly at his son and grinned. His sisters, standing next to their father and impressed with their brother’s newly discovered spirit, also beamed at him. The restaurant patrons, satisfied, went back to their meals, the din of the restaurant returning to its previous cacophony. 

The girl who was the first one to his defense now stood by his side. She gently placed her hand on his arm and looked up at him, and smiled broadly. He felt the gentleness of her comforting touch and smiled back, the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between them.