The amphetamine diet of his twenties had faded into pensive memory and as Roger stood whisking eggs for a Denver omelet on his thirty-first birthday he wondered if he mightn’t have used just two eggs. He wondered if one less egg in an omelet and two percent milk—or even skim though god knows it doesn’t taste as rich—if a dozen such tiny sacrifices stretched over his autobiography since college, since marriage, since Nadine’s miscarriage mightn’t have held his expanding waistline at bay for a few more golden years of radiant youth. He thought of his once-thick hair and formerly toned muscles. He added another spoonful of milk to the eggs.