Breakfast

The toast was burned, the eggs dried out, and the bacon, well, crisp hardly described it. “It’s more cinder than bacon,” he said.

“A low fat recipe,” she said.

“Carcinogens for breakfast,” he said and dumped the plate in the trash.

She broke off a corner of toast, the darkest corner, globbed peanut butter on it, and bit in. “Not bad with p. b.,” she said.

He was standing at the sink, rinsing the charred remains of his breakfast down the drain. “You know,” he said, “we could have cereal for breakfast. I’ve always liked cereal.”

“Oh!” she said. “Me too. Especially oatmeal.”

He could see it already. Oatmeal crisp as bacon, hard to the touch, the blackened pot they’d eventually throw away.

“Or what about shredded wheat? That’s healthy.” She desperately wanted to be a good wife, to create an aura of domesticity. “My mom always served it with hot milk and brown sugar,” she said.

His tongue felt raw, singed, burnt at the thought of scorched milk, but he was careful not to react. No telling where she’d go in her desperation to be what she thought he wanted—French toast hard as a spatula, pancakes that bounced if you dropped them. He’d already told her he wasn’t much of a coffee drinker.

“Breakfast,” he said contemplatively. “Have I ever mentioned that my favorite meal out is breakfast?”

© 2012 Kathleen Coskran