Feeling Good - The Story of Sam & Henry

Chapter 33 - Marilyn

"Here, taste this." I twirled some of the pasta around a fork and brought it to Henry's mouth. He took a bite, and bless him, he rolled his eyes to the back of his head; a clear sign that he had entered into a state of nirvana.

"Holy fuck that is amazing. You cooked that?" He took the fork from me and tried to put it back into the pan, but I swatted his hand away.

"Um, no need to be so surprised asshole."

"It's just, I've never had anything in my life that tasted so amazing. What is it?"

"It's called cacio e pepe which means 'cheese and pepper.' It has few ingredients, but it's actually hard to make it taste really amazing. Traditionally you should use a pasta called tonnarelli, but that's hard to find here. What you can't skimp on is the cheese. It's essential that you use aged Pecorino Romano cheese. And, well, I know the guy who sells to the restaurant, and he's trying to convince me to switch to a different producer in Italy, so he gave me some to try out. It's good, right?" I used a different fork and transferred some to two of the plates I had preheated.

"Sam, I am officially having my first official foodgasm. Or maybe second, those shrimp we ate at the restaurant were unfucking believable too."

"Don't forget the shrimps that you had in Spain..."

"They don't even compare. Seriously, this is incredible." He looked down at the two bowls I was preparing and then back up at me. "Is that all you're giving me because that's not enough, I need, like, double that amount." He pointed at one of the plates and then looked at me with a very serious expression, like I had just stolen his puppy or something. I laughed, and then combined both portions on to one plate, handing it to him, and put another, human-sized portion on to the now empty plate in my hand.

The salad was already on the table, but I grabbed a bottle of prosecco from the fridge and we moved a few feet over to the small table that was in my kitchen. It was hard to initiate a conversation because he was literally shoveling food into his mouth. He caught me staring at him and slowed down a bit. He might have been embarrassed, but frankly, I think there can be no better compliment to the chef, so I just smiled. When he was nearing the end of the pasta, or at least, what was on his plate, I ventured to ask him a question.

"I know you said you don't want to talk about it, and you don't have to, but I'm curious, does your program give you any resources to manage this sort of stuff?"

"We need to speak to a psychiatrist twice a year, but we all know how to bullshit our way through that, so if we don't really want to talk about it, we don't have to. Must of us don't, myself included. And I don't mean what we're doing now, I mean, I just don't think that talking about it to a shrink helps much."

"Have you ever tried it?" I poured myself another small glass of prosecco, offering some to him as well, but he declined.

"Therapy?"

I nodded. He thought for a moment, "I guess not, I mean not regularly. When stuff like this happens I usually just drink and go to a dark place for a few days, sometimes a few weeks, and then I pull my head out of my ass and move on until it happens again."

I nodded again. "I can understand the appeal of that approach, but it doesn't seem very sophisticated, especially for a surgeon."

He swallowed, and then took a sip of water. After putting the glass down, he ran his fingers through his hair and then took a deep breath.

"She had two kids, Sam. She was on the way home from the grocery store with a cake for one of their birthday parties. She died on the day her daughter turned five."