Shrinking Women Comments

Across from me at the kitchen table, my mother smiles over red wine that she drinks out of a measuring glass. She says she doesn't deprive herself, but I've learned to find nuance in every movement of her float, in every crinkle in her brow as she offers me the uneaten pieces on her plate.
I've realized she only eats dinner when I suggest it. I wonder what she does when I'm not there to do so.
Maybe this is why my house feels bigger each time I return; it's proportional. As she shrinks the space around her seems increasingly vast. She wanes while my father waxes. It was the same with his parents; I wonder if my lineage is one of women shrinking.
I have been taught accommodation. My brother never thinks before he speaks. "How can anyone have a relationship to food? " he asks, laughing, as I eat the black bean soup I chose for its lack of carbs.
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