Unlike the other fifteen-year-old boys in my grade, I actually like my Mom’s cooking. Like, a lot. Our public school district just missed the cut-off mark for the rich neighborhoods, so the provided lunches were nearly inedible. Every day for the past two years since we’ve moved here, I’d bring a tupperware to school filled with a freshly cooked meal (occasionally it would be leftovers from dinner, but I never complained). It was delicious and honestly made the school days a little bit better.
I actually enjoyed the envy on my friend’s faces as I dove into some re-heated spaghetti bolognese - which is my all-time favorite. My best friend Thomas is the only person I’ve actually let try her recipes, mainly because I nearly devour whatever glorious concoction she makes on the walk from the microwave to my seat. I let him try her lasagna, chicken parm, and meatball sub, and he agreed they were good. However, I wanted him to really love it and he didn’t. People think I’m weird because of how much I talk about her cooking, but when I tell you it’s great - it’s amazing. I’ve probably told her a thousand times to open a restaurant, but she just laughs it off. So when I let Thomas try some of her food, I was a little pissed he didn’t lose his mind over it.
Last Friday, I let Thomas try her bolognese. I had never shared that one with him before, and I guess I wanted to impress him. His eyes lit up immediately, and he nearly poked my hand with the fork trying to dive back in for seconds. I snatched the fork away, proud of myself and my mom. I knew her cooking was better than the lame responses I had gotten from Thomas so far.
I told my mom about it over the weekend, and she got pretty pissed at me. I’d never told her that I’d shared her food before, but I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. She sat me down and explained to me, “Food is our family’s love language. When you’re ready to learn the recipes, I’ll teach you. Then, you are free to share it with whoever you want.” I didn’t get it. All I was doing was showing off her cooking. I had even told her dozens of times that she could open a restaurant and blow the competition out of the water, but she just scoffed at that. I guess ‘love language’ to her meant to keep things private. I nodded and agreed, knowing that if I wanted to continue to eat amazing lunches and dinners, I better not share it anymore. After we made peace, she whipped up a steak that nearly made me die it was so delicious.
Monday afternoon was when weird things started to happen. I was hanging out with Thomas outside Algebra when he just started laughing. We’re teenagers, so random bursts of laughing was normal, especially in class when he gives me any sort of dumb look. But this time was different.
Thomas was just staring at me and laughing. Tears built up in his eyes, and I could see that he was straining. Instead of any sort of joy, I saw pain in his eyes. Then he stopped laughing and let his mouth hang open. A near-silent wheeze echoed out from his throat. A sound I won’t forget anytime soon.
In the blink of an eye, he closed his mouth, shook his head, and looked back at me as if he had just woken up.
I was so stunned I didn’t know what to do. I asked if he was okay, and he seemed perfectly fine. He had to be messing with me. Maybe he wanted me to think I was seeing things. It thought it was best to pretend like nothing had happened. And for most of the day, that seemed to work. Thomas and I joked around, went to class, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Later that afternoon, on our walk to PE, Thomas turned to me again with his mouth open. His face peeled into an impossible smile and then he collapsed to the ground, seizing. Laughing as his body contorted in front of me. This time, I called for help and a couple of teachers came running.
The ambulance took him away, chuckling to himself on the gurney. That horrifying wheeze accompanied his pain-filled eyes. Thomas wasn’t epileptic and had no allergies that I knew about. We’d spent enough time together that I would have known if he couldn’t eat peanut butter or something. This was something else.
I called my mom and told her what happened, but she didn’t seem concerned. She just wanted to make sure I was feeling alright. I told her that I was totally fine, but I was just nervous for Thomas. Our conversation didn’t last longer than a couple of minutes before she told me she had to run. Before she hung up, I heard a few boxes fall and the rapid zipping of something.
No one picked me up from school that day. When I called my mom, there was no answer. My dad never picked me up, but I tried calling him too. Again, no answer. I ended up hitching a ride with one of my classmates, Jenna, who lived a few blocks away.
Jenna’s mom was one of those paranoid types and kept going on and on about Thomas. She said she thinks this whole town is going to shit. I laughed and turned to Jenna, hoping she also found her mom cursing funny, but she had her earbuds in. She also sat in the last row of the minivan to avoid sitting anywhere near me. Her mom continued her rant and said that if it isn’t kids passing out from school food, it’s missing kids from all around the area that police never even mention.
I’d heard about missing kids on the news briefly, but most of them were just ruled runaways. Besides, nobody we knew was going missing so I didn’t feel unsafe. My mom taught me how to watch out for that kind of thing and said the news loves to blow things out of proportion anyway. I felt a little bad for Jenna because if I heard the things her mom talked about every day, I’d be pretty scared. Even hearing my mom’s voice after watching Thomas collapse made me calm down.
Her mom was very kind and dropped me off at my house even though I insisted that I didn’t mind walking. Before I even opened my front door, I knew something was wrong. I wanted to run inside and get more reassurance from my mom, but that wasn’t going to happen. The front door was propped open, and I could already see the place was a wreck.
I stepped inside to an eerily empty house. Drawers were emptied and it looked like a tornado had run through my living room. But the kitchen was the most unsettling sight. What was normally a fully-stocked, nearly-professional kitchen was now barren. Only the shadows of knives, pots, and pans decorated the walls.
Sitting perfectly on the kitchen island was an old, yellowed, thick book. Pinned to the top of it was a note. I picked it up in an automated state, overwhelmed by everything around me.
Dear Michael,
I hope you understand one day why we did what we did. You see, your friend Thomas didn’t just get sick, we made him sick. Not on purpose, of course. He just isn’t accustomed to your diet.
This is going to seem like a lot at first, but please trust this book explains everything. If you truly love my cooking as much as you say you do, then you’ll use this. You’ll perfect our family recipes. You told too many people about my cooking and we know it’s only a matter of time until they find out what exactly made Thomas sick.
They’ll come for me and your father, but they won’t come for you. They’ll see you as a victim.
I beg you. Don’t be a victim, Michael. We love you. I believe you’re ready for this family secret.
Love you,
Mom
Tears filled my eyes as I moved the note. Staring down at our family cookbook, I felt like I had just inherited gold. Every delicious meal, every good memory I had from school, and nearly a hundred years of secret recipes were now in my possession. My passion for eating was strong, but this ignited a passion for cooking.
My mom might not have wanted to open a restaurant, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t. The recipes were mine now; all I had to do was open that book and learn them. Screw college. Once I have an investor taste this food, they will throw up the money to fund my restaurant easily. Not sure if that’s how restaurants work, but you get my point.
But something bothered me about what she had written. “He just isn’t accustomed to your diet.” What did that mean?
The eerie feeling continued to seep through me as I cracked open the book. The pages were hardened from years of use. Excited began to creep past the unsettling feeling in my gut, but what I saw on the first page stopped everything.
It was a full diagram of a person with every muscle, organ, and bone labeled. Each label had a corresponding number with some of them being repeated. Maybe I misinterpreted the note and she was giving me an old biology textbook?
I flipped to the next page and that’s when my heart sank into my gut. This was no mistake. The index page that followed listed out recipes with page numbers that corresponded to the diagram on the first page. This was indeed a cookbook, but the key ingredient was human.
I slammed the book closed. Horrified by what was in front of me. It had to be some sort of cruel, awful joke. But my brain couldn’t wipe out what I saw.
The recipes on the index page matched perfectly with the meals I’d been eating for as long as I could remember. Recipes that I confessed my love for every day. My mom never told me what went into them. Was this why? Was this the diet I was accustomed to?
It couldn’t be.
I tried calling my mom and dad again, but I got no response. Straight to voicemail. I silently begged for this to be some twisted, messed-up joke. Maybe this is some weird family tradition? When your kid starts getting more interested in the recipes you prank them?
It didn’t make any sense. It had to be a joke. I would know if I was eating people, I just would. The food was delicious. It was so delicious that I thought about it every single day from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. If I was eating people, surely I’d be sick. Hospitalized…
I silently flipped the book page after page, my eyes glazed over on their mission, but I still caught glimpses of horrific imagery and photos of how to prepare unsettlingly familiar body parts. I flipped until I arrived at it. My favorite dish. The dish I gave Thomas a bite of three days before he went to the hospital.
Spaghetti Bolognese
I wanted to throw up. I could barely read the words on the page.
Brain requires acclimation. It is not to be consumed in large quantities until one’s diet is adjusted.
I gagged and spit onto the floor. Brain? My parents fed me brain? The pit in my stomach grew as I continued to read.
Consuming quantities over 2oz without acclimation can result in neural degeneration.
Neural degeneration. Is that what was happening to Thomas? I read the rest of the page, following the steps of seasoning, cutting, and properly cooking. I felt enraptured and pulled back in by the details but slammed the book again once I remembered that this was describing cooking people.
My mind was fighting against itself. I wanted desperately to learn these recipes, but everything here was pointing to my mom and dad being cannibals. They forced me to be a cannibal as well and ‘acclimated’ me.
No. It’s not right. The food was too good; it couldn’t have been people. The ambivalence in my head was enough to make me explode. I needed to know this was not true.
But the photos. The photos in the cookbook didn’t look as old as the rest of it. They were recent. As if someone wanted me to fully understand how to cook these recipes to perfection. I tucked the book away far in the corner and tried to ignore it.
I felt sick to my stomach and decided to shut out the world for the rest of the day.
I’m sitting in my room as I write this. The cookbook is still in the kitchen, and I feel terrible for not getting rid of it. The recipes are just too good to go to waste. You have to believe me.
I want to try to cook them using regular ground beef or chicken, but I know something won’t taste right. On the rare occasion I would eat something besides my mom’s cooking the meats always tasted so… bland.
I’m starting to think there’s only one way to do these recipes justice. I’m scared of what I might do.