You’re still asleep when I wake up, so I make French toast. Vanilla, butter, brown sugar. I save

the best slices for you. But does it matter? You’ll still say it’s too eggy. As if I can control how

eggy my eggs are.

I serve you the roundest pancakes I make, the ones with the crisp golden edges and the neatest

banana-slice smiley faces. But will you see it? You hate bananas, and you’ve never had much of

a creative eye.

You’ll always have the muffins with the most chocolate chips, or blueberries, or cinnamon. The

ones with the shiny, full tops and the buttery bottoms. But do you care? You’ll remind me that I

never make enough muffins, because I run out of some ingredient before the rest. As if anyone

can ever tell how much olive oil is still in the bottle.

You’re still asleep when I get hungry, so I eat the French toast with the worst proportions of oil,

milk, salt. The slices with the slimy intact egg white and the soggy center. It doesn’t matter.

I serve myself the crinkled pancakes, I guess I flipped them over too early. Their edges are

blackened. Not toasted, just straight ash. The banana smiley face I made is lost in the batter

somewhere. You won’t see it.

I’ll always have the muffins that somehow missed the chocolate chips, or blueberries, or

cinnamon. They’ll have sagging, chalky tops and crumby bottoms. You don’t care. How could

you, after all? I do all the shopping, and I ran out of olive oil before anything else. Did I make

enough muffins, now that half of them will be moist and half of them won’t?

You’re still asleep when I crawl back into bed. You turn over, content. How could you not? The

best of everything I have is yours, and you’ll never know. You’ll never be the one that is awake,

alone. You’ll never eat by yourself, and you’ll never do or forget to do the shopping. You will always be fed, and I will always 

be hungry.

I made you French toast. I hope you like it.