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Maya is a fussy eater. She is sure it wasn’t this difficult to get Mia to eat when Misty was first getting her to eat solid foods. No, it was much easier with Mia. So why is Maya so fussy?
She barely eats anything, spitting out food and grimacing. Sometimes, she cries. And Misty just doesn’t know what is going on. Granted, she has only had one other child, but she thinks Mia developed normally. Could there possibly be something different about Maya?
Eventually, she finds something the toddler likes: ramen. So Maya ends up eating ramen at least once a day, and Misty knows her daughter has an unhealthy diet, but at least she is eating something.
---
Sometimes, Misty tries to encourage Maya to try new foods. She will sit Maya in the high chair at the kitchen table, with plates of fruits and nuts and meats spread out on the table. Mia sits beside her, watching her mother and her little sister go through this routine.
It never goes very well. She holds out food to Maya, who smells it and inevitably shakes her head. As her ability to speak improves, she adds comments like, “Smells gross,” or “Don’t want it.”
And Misty sighs in exasperation. “Come on, Maya, just try it for Mommy. You can’t eat ramen for the rest of your life.”
“Well, she sort of can,” Mia says, ever the smart-alec. “She’d just need to go on tablets and probably be really unhealthy.”
Misty raises her eyebrows, but she can’t keep the smile off of her face. “Thank you for that very helpful comment, Mia.”
Mia grins. “You’re welcome.”
In the meantime, Maya has reached forwards and picked up a carrot stick. The sound of her teeth crunching the raw carrot makes them both turn to look. When she sees the smile on Maya’s face as she crunches on the carrot, Misty’s eyes widen.
“Do you like that, darling?”
Maya grins and nods. “It’s nice and crunchy.”
Mia holds out her hand and Maya gives her a high give. She giggles and presses the palms of her hands together, a thing she does a lot when happy. And Misty gives Maya a hug, and the toddler takes another bite of the crunchy carrot.
Many people might not understand why Misty would be so happy to see her daughter eat a carrot. But Maya has such a restricted diet that finding foods she can eat is a big deal. A very big deal.
---
As she gets older, Maya’s diet becomes more diverse. But she is still a very picky eater, eating far fewer foods than most people she knows. But she compensates this by eating a lot of the thing she does like, often amazing Mia by the amount of food she can consume.
She also develops a second favourite food: burgers. In fact, she is eating a burger when home alone with Mia when they receive some terrifying news.
The telephone rings, making Maya jump (she hates hates hates the sound of a ringing phone), and she drops her burger and clamps her hands over her ears. But then Mia answers the phone and the noise stops, so she starts eating again.
But… something is wrong. She can hear Mia in the other room, and her voice is shaky and too high pitched. Maya keeps chewing her burger, but it tastes like cardboard.
Mia starts crying and her stomach clenches, sliding from her chair and curling up in a ball under the table. Maya presses her face to her knees, rocking back and forth, and she tries to block out the sound of her big sister crying.
She thinks about what has happened recently, with her mom helping out on a police case. She doesn’t understand it and Mom doesn’t want her to, but Maya knows it didn’t go to plan. Mom was so upset. Is this to do with that?
Eventually, Mia comes back into the room. She crawls under the table and sits beside Maya on the floor. Maya keeps her eyes closed, but she hears Mia’s breathing shuddering with sobs.
“Maya?” she whispers.
But Maya doesn’t reply. She can’t reply. When she is stressed like this, she can’t speak anymore. She just kind of shuts down.
Mia obviously understands, because she doesn’t press Maya to speak. Instead, she says, “That was the police. They said Mom has gone missing.”
Maya barely moves, but her heart pounds and tears run down her face. They haven’t seen their mother in three days, but they never thought she would leave for good like this. But if there’s been an official thing about Mom being declared missing, then it must be true.
Even though it’s hard to move, Maya reaches out and hugs Mia. She wraps her arms around Maya and they cling to each other, crying and missing their mother. The smell of her half eaten burger wafts up her nose, but now it just makes her feel sick.
---
Every time she eats a burger, it reminds her of that day, of the time Maya and Mia lost their mother. But she carries on eating; that’s the problem when you’ve got such a restricted diet – you can’t cut one of your few foods out of your diet just because it has ties to the worst day of your life. Unfortunately.