Nearly an hour after he left the apartment, Emmett pulled up outside a four- bedroom Craftsman in the well-to-do coastal suburb of Carlsbad. White shutters, white door, two white SUVs parked in the drive. Chris and his wife, Jayla, had paid close to a million for it after selling their “starter home” for a profit of $400,000, more than a hundred thousand for every year they’d owned it. Chris was always telling Emmett, without an ounce of irony, that he needed to get on the property ladder, as if his refusal to live the American dream were a matter of arrested development rather than total financial in eptitude. Chris, who had lived with their dad rent free until he was twenty-six, had flunked out of community college, paid for by Dad; gotten his real estate license, paid for by Dad; and bought his first property at twenty-seven, again thanks to Dad, who made it clear that any financial support that might have been earmarked for Emmett had been squandered on his undergrad tuition. Foolish of Emmett not to have dropped out and bought a fixer-upper instead. He sat in his car, hair disheveled from driving on the freeway with the windows down. Sweat bloomed across his lower back, as hot and sticky as a fungal infection. He didn’t hate this brother, who hadn’t had the easiest childhood himself. But that Chris refused to acknowledge the ways his life had been easier—would probably always be easier, for reasons he could never fully understand—made it hard not to resent him. With a sigh, Emmett got out of the car, grabbed Harper’s present out of the back (embellished with a quartet of smiling balloons), and rang the bell. Inside he heard his brother’s voice and the shrieking laughter of children. He wished Lizette had been able to come. After months of trying to attract the attention of potential investors in GORDITA, she’d finally managed to schedule a lunch with some big-shot venture capitalist who was in town from Miami for the weekend. It was the only time he could meet, and Lizette couldn’t miss her big break. The door swung open and there stood Chris, golden-haired and barrel- chested, a surf tee pulled over his board shorts. He greeted Emmett with his usual forced enthusiasm. “Hey, man, how’s it going?” His eyes rose to Emmett’s hair. “Whoa, wild color. I need sunglasses.” Children raced and screamed in the background, an earsplitting blur of pink tulle. Emmett gloated at the few extra pounds collected around Chris’s midsection, the gentle backward slide of his hairline. Small victories against the half brother who had tormented him as a kid. “Yeah. Thanks. I’m good.” The screaming blur stopped and tucked herself under Chris’s arm, angelic. “Happy birthday, Harper,” Emmett exclaimed. “Thank you.” She beamed, twisting. “How old are you now? Fourteen, fifteen?”
“I’m four!” “Oh, four! That’s lucky, because the store only had four balloons. You better take these.” He handed them over. Chris called after her as she ran off inside, the balloons bobbing behind her. “Hey, what do you say?” “It’s fine,” Emmett said. “Come on in. Everyone’s out back.” “Is Dad here?” A low tut. “Yeah right. Your mom’s here, though.” She was staying with Chris, who had adopted her as his kids’ honorary grandma as Chris’s own mother had passed away when he was very young. In his excitement, Emmett had told her about his upcoming Future Makers interview. Now he wished he hadn’t. “You bring swim trunks?” Chris said. “Forgot them.” “I got an extra pair you can borrow.” “Yeah, thanks,” said Emmett sarcastically, before realizing Chris wasn’t making fun of him. Apparently old habits died hard—for him at least. “Sorry,” he muttered and st epped inside. As he passed through the glass slider at the back of the house, it became clear just how desperately Emmett didn’t want to be there. The joy of the day couldn’t penetrate his misery—the perfect weather, the laughter of children, the army of blond moms sipping cocktails on the lawn as their hot shirtless husbands hurled screaming kids across the pool. Already Emmett’s senses were homing in on the smell of food from the grill, the sizzle of burger patties oozing blood and melted cheese, beef franks blackening to cinders. Chris clapped him on the shoulder. “We got plenty of grub. Grab a plate.” “I can’t,” Emmett said, and Chris rolled his eyes. He didn’t need to say it: Another diet. This one was necessary. He’d been driving home from the Future Makers interview when he received the email informing him he hadn’t gotten the job. It was the speed of it that made it feel personal, like a knee-jerk reaction not to what they had heard, but to what they had seen. Perhaps that wasn’t the case. Perhaps he just didn’t measure up—figuratively—and they didn’t want to waste his time. Still, he’d decided then that it was time to start dieting again. He had immediately redownloaded the My Fitness Pal app to his phone, set his daily calorie goal to 1,500—the lowest a man could safely go, said the internet—and after one final night of carnage, resumed the familiar ritual of logging every bite and sip he consumed throughout the day. The same diet he had done a hundred times, but this time was different. This time he wouldn’t let himself down. This time he would turn his life around. The intrusive thoughts had already started. You’re dieting today? You really want to miss this opportunity to celebrate with your family? You hardly ever see them anymore. Give yourself a break and restart the diet tomorrow! He pushed them away, but he could feel it almost physically, the vise of want tightening around him. The upward tick of the invisible meter tracking his progress toward total, inevitable collapse. With a plate of baby carrots and broccoli he trudged through the crowd, avoiding people’s eyes. He knew too many of them from his thinner, postcollege days, when Chris had taken to forcing him out partying with him and his friends. He couldn’t bear the thought of their strained smiles and awkward hugs, their polite So what are you up to’s while they pretended not to notice what he’d become.
Where was his family? He’d feel safer with them. His mom, Joanna, was mid-gasp and clutching her chest when Emmett found her and his sister, Abby, by the screened-in trampoline. “I can’t watch.” She shielded her eyes and turned her back to the bouncing children as if they were juggling knives. “Someone’s gonna snap their neck,” Emmett said, reciting a line from their childhood that had become one of his mother’s reluctant catchphrases. She gasped again at the sight of him; a smile lit up her face. “There he is!” She pulled him into a hug and held on, almost cooing: “My boy. I missed you so much.” “Hey, Mom. You look great,” Emmett said. Some new diet, she told him. “You have to try it.” It was always a new thing with her. I’ve gone pescatarian, she would say, then the next time he saw her, I’m on paleo. I’m back on Weight Watchers. I’m doing Noom. Even more annoying was that they all worked, at least at first. It didn’t sit right with him, the ease with which she adopted new lifestyles and cut out entire food groups. Given the way she brought him up eating, how de eply ingrained those habits still were, he wished she would struggle just slightly. Abby sipped a plastic cup of red wine she had probably brought herself, rail- thin and beautiful in a buttoned-up navy dress. “What about me, don’t I look good?” she said, hugging him hello. “You look like you came straight from court.” “Client meeting, actually. Mark says hi. He’s running a ten K.” “Surprised you didn’t join him.” “Is that sarcastic?” Abby snapped. “You know I’m a runner too now. I did the half marathon last month.” “I know, Abby, Jesus Christ.” “I’m just saying. I thought you were making fun of me.” “We all know better than that,” Joanna muttered, adding brightly as Abby’s head whipped around, “Just kidding!” Abby stewed and drained her wine, the one remaining holdover from the “dirty eating” lifestyle she’d given up when she started dating Mark. “How was your interview?” she asked. It didn’t sound like a jab. She really wanted to know. Emmett looked at Joanna. “You told her?” “I didn’t say anything!” There was no point arguing; once his mom had decided on a truth, there was no wresting it from her. “Tell me,” his mom said. “You got it?” “Nope.” She gasped again. “You’re kidding!” “That was quick,” Abby remarked. “Thanks, Ab.” “They say why?” Joanna cooed. “Just not what they were looking for, I guess.” “Well, they’re idiots. Fuck ’em.” Abby tried for another sip, but her cup was empty. She stalked off for a refill and paused to talk to Chris, possibly to gossip about Emmett’s bad news. Joanna stroked Emmett’s arm consolingly, her eyes gushing love and adoration. “You’ll find something.” He knew what was coming before she even said it: “There’s somethin’ special about that boy.” Three-quarters of an hour later the party moved inside. Joanna shouldered forward to join the camera-wielding mama-razzi at the front while Emmett and Abby skulked at the back. “This one’s from Uncle Emmett,” Chris announced, reading the label on the gift-wrapped package.
Emmett dreaded Harper’s reaction. She was on a rampage, a gift-opening gladiator in a tutu, performing for the entertainment of her feral admirers. The crowd oohed and aahed as she savaged the paper. Pausing not one second to look at the forty-dollar Frozen tea set, she discarded it on the floor and reached for the next. “Bitch,” Emmett whispered. “That’s harsh,” admitted Abby. Her Barbie Je ep had at least elicited a scream. The front door inched open behind them, and a man in his late thirties entered. Emmett did a double take, not recognizing him at first. “Hey, Em-Dog, what’s up.” Niño, whose given name was Nicholas Hofstetter, had been Chris’s best friend as long as Emmett could remember. He was one of the few who’d never minded Chris’s chubby kid brother tagging along on trips to the mall and the beach. These days his naturally dark hair was peroxide blond, giving him the look of an aging fuckboy. The shirt under his blazer was unbuttoned at the top, revealing just enough of his sculpted clavicle to reawaken Emmett’s boyhood crush. Emmett obliged him in a clapping handshake. “What’ve you been up to?” “Just working. You know.” The glint in Niño’s eye suggested he’d been selling. A pharmaceutical sales r ep with a penchant for chaos, he was known to use his industry access to moonlight as a high-class dealer. Percocet and codeine samples mostly. Premarket and downstream prototypes when he could get his hands on them. He greeted Abby with a quiet hug and kiss on the cheek, then skulked off to find something to eat. I’ve got something you can eat, Emmett thought. Soon the mountain of gifts had been slain and the party moved into the open kitchen-dining room. The birthday song was sung with an added cha cha cha from Chris, before slices of Costco sheet cake circulated on Disney Princess plates. The sight of it unleashed something raging and animalistic inside Emmett. His stomach howled. Fearing his diet was about to come to an abrupt end, he retreated, locked himself in the bathroom, and stood in front of the mirror, white-knuckling the counter. His eyes rose to his reflection. Truthfully, he didn’t hate it. Dieting always had this effect on him. He probably hadn’t lost more than a pound or two, but the emptiness of his stomach alone was enough to make him feel thinner, more confident. It reminded him why he was putting himself through this torture and how much better he would feel if he just stuck with it. The door handle jiggled. “Oop, someone’s in there,” said a woman’s voice. “We have to wait our turn.” Emmett wet and dried his hands, opened the door, and smiled at the mother and child who shuffled in after him. When he returned to the kitchen-dining room, it was empty. Emmett could see the others out back through the glass slider, forming a loose circle on the lawn. A blindfolded Harper took swings at an Olaf the snowman piñata with a tee-ball bat as Chris coached her. Emmett’s gaze fell to the food covering the kitchen counters—not just half a dozen leftover plates of cake, but everything his sister-in-law had brought in from outside. Huge piles of uneaten patties and
franks, open bags of buns, condiments, a platter of toppings. He didn’t mind that the meat was cold and the lettuce wilting. It was the hit of fatty protein he craved, the refined carbohydrates spiking his blood sugar, that first anesthetizing wallop of fullness —a literal gut punch of relief. He stood there so long the mother and kid, finished in the bathroom, walked past him and headed out back while Emmett pretended to answer a text. He began to follow, but his feet failed him. A lizard-brained impulse tugged him back toward the food. His hunger was no longer hunger but something more urgent, more insistent. A climbing white-hot need for satisfaction, as overwhelming as orgasm. He could do it, should do it, while everyone was outside. If he acted now, no one would see. Before he could think twice, he grabbed a bun, slapped together a burger, and, st epping out of view of the window, shoved the sandwich into his mouth. He barely chewed, impatient for relief. The mouthful collected at the top of his gut, the almost uncomfortable fullness spreading a sensation of soothing calm through his body. He was eight years old again, back in the house on Whispering Tree Lane: standing in the walk-in pantry, door closed, lights off, scarfing down whatever he could, as fast as he could. Cookies, Cheez-Its, trail mix. Ears trained above the champing of his jaws, attuned to the sounds of movement outside the door. He wasn’t full enough yet. He made another. Eat it down quick, before he comes. A few bites into the second, a spectacular fullness radiated through him like he’d tipped his head back and swallowed an avalanche. But now that his craving for fat had been satisfied, his sweet tooth had to be appeased. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t stand another bite, that he feared he might be sick. This had never been about hunger. He grabbed a plate and shoveled cake into his mouth with his hands. One bite, two, and a slippery satisfaction slid over him, underpinned by a growing threat of regurgitation. Still he gorged, programmed to clear his plate no matter the cost. The slider opened. With a frisson of horror, Emmett threw the plate down on the counter. I wasn’t—not mine—someone else— It hung off the edge and flopped backward, cake side up, onto the floor. “Emmett!” Abby took him in: icing smeared around his mouth, chin dripping, a glob of ketchup streaking the front of his shirt like evidence of a murder. He turned and strode out of the kitchen. “It’s okay, I just— Where are you going?” she called after him. He didn’t answer, bursting through the front door and climbing into his car. She shouted his name from the doorway as he tore off down the street, desperate to be where prying eyes could not follow. Appendix D—Interview Transcript FD: It’s, oh, 1:13 p. m. on Wednesday, November 13, 2024. This is Frank Darrow, principal investigator for Prentice & Darrow LLP on behalf of Monstera Bio Sciences, at the law offices of Newlin, Farah &
Combs in Solana Beach, California. I’m here with—would you introduce yourself for me? Name, age, occupation? AT: Abigail Truesdale, Esquire. Thirty-six. Attorney. FD: And your relationship to the participant? AT: Emmett’s sister. FD: Thanks for sitting down with me, Ms. Truesdale. I know your time is valuable and you’ve been kind enough to do this pro bono, so I’ll ke ep this short. The Monstera team has hired my firm to investigate your brother’s alleged crimes, to understand what might’ve caused him to act out as he did. AT: Act out? FD: All that nastiness in the news. The cannibalism. AT: Alleged cannibalism. FD: You’re right. Thank you. As I was saying, my clients are eager to understand whether his alleged cannibalism was in any way related to the clinical trial, or whether it might have been something from his past. If there were warning signs, say, of violent behavior or— AT: Absolutely not. And if that’s the kind of evidence you’re looking for, then— FD: Not at all. We’re a neutral party here. Just trying to get to the bottom of this. AT: How neutral can you be? Monstera’s funding this little witch hunt, aren’t they? FD: We can stop right now if you’re uncomfortable. But to be frank, with your mom refusing to talk to us and your dad not responding, we’re lacking a family perspective here. If there’s another side to Emmett, one the outside world doesn’t know about, it could make a big difference to our findings. AT: [Pause.] What exactly do you want to know? FD: Just a bit more about your brother. The real him. Maybe start at the beginning. Where was he born? AT: Here. San Diego. December 8, 1994. FD: You were living in North County, correct? Poway? AT: Not then. That was after Mom remarried. We were in Old Town at the time. FD: We? AT: Me, my mom and dad, and my dad’s son from a previous relationship, Chris. My half brother. FD: Chris. I didn’t realize there was another. Your parents later divorced, I take it. AT: When Emmett was two. A couple years after that Mom met her second husband, Hank Stauder. I’m sure you know all about him. FD: Hank, you said? AT: He never liked his first name. Said it was silly. He went by his middle name instead. FD: From what I gather, Hank and Emmett didn’t get along too well. AT: At first they did. We all liked Hank. He was nice, funny. A little strict. A military brat. Brought up Mormon. No longer practicing, but he still lived by a lot of the rules. No caffeine or alcohol. Healthy body, healthy mind, all that. The house— FD: That’s the one in Poway. On Whispering Tree Lane. AT: Right. It was Hank’s castle; he was the king. Everyone cleaned their mess, everyone had their chores. You didn’t do your chores, you didn’t eat, or so he threatened. Needless to say, Emmett was always the first to get his chores done. [Chuckles.] FD: Did he always struggle with his weight, Emmett? AT: [Pause.] He was never thin. Husky was the word my mom used. She didn’t see it as a problem. Always said that as soon as he hit
puberty, he’d have a growth spurt and all that baby weight would fall off, just like her brothers. FD: Sounds like she had a relaxed attitude toward food. AT: Relaxed is an understatement. For Mom, food was everything. If you got straight A’s at school, she’d take you to Mc Donald’s to celebrate. If you didn’t make the cheerleading squad, she’d pick up Ben & Jerry’s on the way home so you could eat your feelings. She said it was the Italian mother in her. Food was how she showed she cared. And she did care. If you didn’t eat seconds or thirds at dinner, she’d make a joke like she was offended, but I think there was some truth to it. Rejecting her food was like rejecting her love. FD: So Emmett might have felt pressured to eat more than he cared to. AT: I didn’t say that. FD: What would you say? AT: I just feel like we were never taught about food as fuel for our bodies. For us, food was happy, food was comfort, food was a release valve for our stress. We learned about nutrition in school, but by then it was almost too late. Then Hank came along, and he was the polar opposite. He had all these rules for the “right” way to eat. Take small bites. Put your fork down between mouthfuls. Chew your food forever before swallowing. FD: You said he and Emmett got along “at first.” AT: After we moved to Poway, Hank started to show a different side of him. FD: Different how? AT: Harsher, maybe? More judgmental? He began to make little comments about our weight. FD: The three of you? AT: Emmett and me mostly. Mom k ept herself pretty trim in those days. When she wasn’t around he’d drop these little comments, basically saying that I was getting fat, that no man would want to marry me if I didn’t shape up. FD: Oh boy. AT: He was always on me about going out for sports, which I did. Then when I was training three times a week and still not losing weight, he accused me of not playing hard enough, being lazy. That was a big one for him—laziness. It really got under his skin. FD: Do you feel he was harder on you as a girl? AT: Oh yeah. It’s always harder for girls, for women. But he did it to Emmett too. And Emmett, he was sensitive like a girl. I don’t mean that in a stereotypical way. Just that he had that sensibility. Sometimes I think that counts for just as much. FD: What kind of things would Hank say to Emmett? AT: He’d encourage him to skip meals. Told him that if he was hungry he should drink a glass of water. Hank only ate once a day, usually a plate of Spam and rice. With Tabasco, always with Tabasco. He said one meal was all the body needed. One time Emmett was out sick from school and Hank agreed to stay home with him. Later when I went into Emmett’s room to check on him, he told me Hank hadn’t given him anything to eat all day. Nothing but water. FD: And your mom, did she have anything to say about that? AT: Oh, she was furious. I could hear her shouting from my room. “He’s five years old, for fuck sake! You can’t just starve him!” But Hank, he had a way of smoothing these things over, of making it seem like it was just a misunderstanding.
FD: And was it a misunderstanding? AT: I want to think so. But then, I always got the sense that stuff was going on that Mom and I didn’t see. FD: How so? AT: For example, the day we found out Mom and Hank had eloped. We’d just come back from my dad’s house while they were vacationing in Palm Springs. Mom called me into Emmett’s room— FD: How old was Emmett then? AT: I was thirteen, so he would’ve been around... six? FD: Sorry, continue. AT: She sat us down on the bed and told us she and Hank had gotten married. I was happy for them, but Emmett... He just sort of collapsed and started sobbing. The look on his face... it was like he’d just been told his dog was dead. Mom and I looked at each other like, What the fuck? Neither of us expected it. Then Mom started crying too but was pretending not to. It was awful. After that I noticed Emmett getting heavier. More than just husky, I mean. Food started going missing around the house. Hank was constantly blaming him, but Emmett said it wasn’t him. Eventually I left for college in Santa Barbara. I felt so guilty leaving Emmett behind, but to be honest I needed a break from Hank myself. I was struggling with an eating disorder and was scared he was making it worse. FD: He was giving you a hard time about it? AT: [Laughing.] No. He k ept telling me how great I looked, how proud of me he was for slimming down. FD: Oh, that’s... Sorry. Go on. AT: That first year of college I spent Thanksgiving with friends. But I came home for Christmas, and I was shocked. Emmett had gained like twenty pounds. In three months. FD: Did you ask him about it? AT: Mom said he was just going through a phase. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I let it go. But it wasn’t a phase. Whatever was happening between Hank and Emmett, it seemed like it had gotten much worse. I should’ve done something. It’s so obvious now. I should’ve gotten him out of that house.