The Mafia King's Bride

5 | Life

Dominic

Eloise's eyes bulge as she looks at the heap of food before her. The lasagna and seafood are steaming—the seafood platter is comprised of shelled garlic shrimp, two lobster tails drizzled with lemon butter, mussels in a tomato-sambuca sauce, scallops wrapped in bacon, strips of peppercorn-crusted smoked salmon, and calamari rings. In the center of the platter are crackers, hummus, melted butter, cocktail sauce, and tzatziki sauce. Everything is garnished with parsley and looks appetizing. The lasagna is shiny with oil from the top layer of burnt mozzarella and cheddar cheese, running down the sides of the layers and coating the glass pan with orange grease. The lasagna is six layers—one layer being made up of pasta sheets, sauce, ricotta cheese and spinach, and a dusting of the mozzarella-cheddar blend. The food is so massive you hardly notice the small ceramic plates nested between both dishes with silverware on top wrapped in ivory cotton napkins. I take one plate and utensil-set and place it in front of Eloise, then the other in front of my myself. She looks up at me shyly.

"This is...a lot of food," she blinks. Smugly I cut the block of lasagna in half and put her share on her plate. Before I can serve myself she has already taken a few bites, brows furrowed, sucking in air to douse the hotness of the food. An almost imperceptible nod accompanies each bite, easily missable to an amateur observer. I am no amateur, however. "This lasagna is incredible."

There is not much diatribe or conversation as we bite down lasagna between sips of wine. Eloise finishes her wine before me and again denies another glass from the waiter, requesting water instead which the waiter brings back by the time I am done my wine. The waiter asks if I want another glass, which I reject, and when I also request a water he is courteous to my face but as he turns away I see him roll his eyes. By the end of the night he will be out of a job and therefore will have something to really roll his eyes about. When he brings my water, however, I say thank you, delighting in the fact that he is none the wiser for the time being.

Eloise is absorbed in her lasagna. I am still reeling from her compliment. The base recipe has been in my family for decades upon decades but has undergone revisions under each new owner of this restaurant. Many of the classic recipes have been changed to appease the modernizing western masses, with much success. I am happy that my versions continue to be successful. I wonder suddenly what the original versions of these family recipes must have tasted like—what spices were used, what secrets were kept. I will probably never know, but at least I know that Eloise enjoys the things I create.

We finish eating the lasagna, putting our plates in the empty pan, placing the pan at the end of the table, and putting the seafood platter front and center. Eloise's lipstick has rubbed off and the effect on her mouth is primal. Her lips almost look swollen. I wonder how she would look afterwards if she allowed me to kiss her the way I want to. Imagining beyond the dishevelment of her makeup is planting all sorts of thoughts in my head.

"What made you start taking antidepressants?" I ask her abruptly. Even if she is mostly put together on the outside, her brain and mental world are disheveled. I find it morbidly fascinating, though my inquiries emerge from a place of concern.

"Why are you asking me this?" Eloise tilts her head to the side. Her question isn't defensive but rather dripping with curiosity. I understand the exchange: I will have to tell her why I am so invested in her mental health, and she will tell me how she became mentally unwell. I could lie, but I decide to be honest.

"I never had the opportunity to get close to my mom. Neither did my brother. She died before we had the chance. I was young so I missed all the signs, but I am a grown man now and if there are any signs I would like to be privy to them. I wish that my mom would have lived long enough to get the help she needed. I know depression isn't bipolar disorder but I just...I just want to make sure you're fine and that you have everything under control. I have invasive questions for my own peace of mind. I ask, however, with the hope that you will be gracious enough to assuage my concerns."

Throughout my soliloquy Eloise eats casually—her demeanor is cold but her eyes are warm with attentiveness. Part of her is uncomfortable at the connections I have drawn as evidenced by the way her eyebrows would elevate at every intersection. Regardless, when she gives me her full attention, I can see the openness to discussion.

"First of all...I appreciate you sharing all of that with me and, again, I am very sorry about your mom. I lost my mom young, too, but it was to cancer. I can't imagine what that must have been like for you," she gives me a tremulous smile. "I have experienced depression on and off since I was 18. I could usually feel when it was setting in, and I could even feel when it was lifting too. In my last year of university the depression wouldn't lift. I was burned out, I was scared for what came after, and...my early twenties have been ambivalent toward me at best."

She is leaving something out—something important, I sense, but if I interrupt her then she will stop talking and that is not a risk worth taking. There is something compelling about Eloise when she really talks that demands your focus. Maybe it is that she's beautiful, confident, and eloquent. Maybe it is that she's educated. Maybe it is that it's an undeniable privilege to have her be candid with you in a world where candidness is selective based on whether it is a weakness or strength in that moment. I like that Eloise cares nothing about how weak or strong she is in whatever moment. She continues.

"A healthy brain experiences the call of the void often: the I could crash into a tree but I won't, I could drive off a bridge but I won't, I could defenestrate myself but I won't. One day I was driving on the highway and there was a shift: it was no longer that I could drive into a tree or off a bridge. The question became: should I? When I had to talk myself out of it I booked myself a doctor's appointment as soon as I got home. My only regret is not doing it sooner."

"Does your dad know you take antidepressants?"

"No. I never want him to know. He would be disappointed in me. I am already disappointed in myself for taking them. The embarrassment I would feel on behalf of my father...insurmountable."

"I just want you to know," I say after finishing my lobster tail. We have slowly been reducing the platter between exchanges. I think we might just finish it. "If I had depression, I can only hope that I would do what you did. I'm not a very sensitive man, Eloise, but I am an understanding man, and I admire that you made the decision you did. The alternative probably would have been suicide—"

I didn't mean for the last sentence to come out. I can be catastrophic when it comes to matters of life or death.

"I am grateful I will never know. It is hard to say why the instinct to live is stronger than the impulse to die. Maybe it's because death goes against every instinct in the human body. I mean, think about it: if a person is injured, even if the injuries are life-threatening, the human body will do anything it can in its attempt to survive. This is what I mean by death is an impulse: every second spent dying is still living. You are dead after you take your last breath; you are not already dead in the breaths leading up to the final one."

"It takes a lot of courage to die," I say evenly. Eloise eats a few calamari rings before she responds.

"I am reluctant to apply adjectives to the topic of death and suicide...but I will say that to act against every instinct takes a lot of strength," to my surprise she holds her left hand out to me. Slowly, gingerly, I slip my hand in hers and she grips onto it fiercely. "I don't want you to think I romanticize death. I don't. I sometimes think the reason I'm alive is because I am not ready to find out what happens after death. I will say this: it is very brave to live, and it is also very brave to die. That is all I have for adjectives."

She squeezes my hand and pulls away, picking from the platter. The conversation is over and I accept that. Eloise has given me a lot to ruminate about: the nature of life and death, the instinct to survive and the impulse to die, the call of the void, the shame of mental illness and the embarrassment of seeking, and receiving, help, the way it felt to have my hand squeezed by hers. She didn't hold my hand romantically, seductively, or anything like that—she held it supportively.

I think I look at death a little differently now. I wonder if it will feel different when I kill my next man.