Soup's On

I angled my head in the direction of my room, in which were a sleeping Emily and a vigilant Marlee; Gil nodded. "Don't get the idea we're just here to take over your home and eat all your food," he counseled.

"Yeah, I know --" I started, but he intercepted me.

"That's why we finished breakfast before we came over, and then bought our own food." We both smiled. "We'll share with you, of course, but still... I got a wife and daughter who need me." He picked up a chair and made his way toward the bedroom, a protective note to his voice. "And she needs the husband she's got... and so do her mother and I."

"Shouldn't I come along?" This was the thing I had feared most -- being packed off to the sidelines in my own home, foisted into what I believed to be a secondary role in caring for the woman to whom I've been married for twenty-five years, and with whom we have longer still shared each other's hearts.

Gil couldn't read these thoughts, concerning himself instead with what lay before both of us. "The soup's about ready to get made -- I leave that over to you." His voice was kind but guiding. "You wanna help? There's your part for right now."

I set about chopping the fresh vegetables, pouring them alongside the canned ones into the aforementioned Dutch oven; even the packing water from the cans would be useful to build the broth. Once I had the pot sufficiently full, I set the whole business on a low simmer and sat at the table. My overall mood was glum, not only from Emily being sick, but because I wasn't on the front lines to assist her recovery. Then again, I was being entrusted with a key piece of that puzzle -- and a tasty one to boot.

Around noon, I poked my head in to see how things were going. Emily was still deeply asleep, but mumbling in a dream; her words were straightforward and intelligible, but stringing themselves together into a sequence that made no immediate, discernible sense. Gil and Marlee were touching the ends of each other's hands, wordlessly watching their daughter with equal parts concern, deep parental love, and a bemused "what will that brain of hers come up with next?" expression.

"Anyone for lunch?" I asked. "Sandwich, maybe?"

Marlee shook her head, her voice gentle. "Thanks, but no."

"All right, sure, thanks," Gil offered. "I brought the stuff and put it in the fridge."

This instantly became, despite its simplicity, one of the most elegant meals I've ever eaten, owing to the spirit of such togetherness and common goal as we shared -- two bologna sandwiches each for Gil and me, on white bread with yellow mustard. For added effect, we touched the crusts of the first sandwiches together, in a lighthearted spoof of clinking glasses. I made the offer to Marlee a second time, lest Gil and I appear rude by eating in front of her when she was not, but she still declined. Once Gil and I finished, he went back to keeping a watch over Emily, while I added some more onions and garlic to the soup, letting them add flavor while roasting in their own right, while waiting for the soup in general to be ready by the time McCord and Maureen got home.

About three-thirty, I heard the front door opening, followed by a loud sniffing noise, as well as a teenage female voice calling out, "Mmm, something sure smells good!" Next moment, however, that same voice became curious: "Grandma? Grandpa? Everything okay?" Then, to me, "I saw their pickup in the driveway... if they're here, things must be pretty bad."

That was just the moment when Gil happened to be en route to the kitchen. "Nice to see you too," he answered the young woman, but with noticeable sarcasm.

Maureen -- whose voice this indeed was --and her grandfather hugged each other. "Oh, hi, Grandpa... but you know I didn't mean anything wrong by it."

"And what did you mean?" Gil's expression softened to a light smile, but his voice made clear that he didn't plan to let Maureen off the hook quite so readily.

"C'mon, you know how it is when Mom's sick... she still thinks the world's on her shoulders, and so she tries to go on like nothing's wrong, and so gets sicker because she pushes us away until she can't push anymore..." For being a couple weeks away from seventeen, Maureen was an amazingly mature and astute student of her mother's tendencies that way; a tear could be heard creeping into her voice.

Gil gave an ironic little laugh. "Well, considering that Emily's been my daughter longer than she's been your mother... I think I have a pretty good idea how she does."

"Better than just 'pretty good.'" Marlee had quietly stepped away from her post long enough to come to the kitchen and hug Maureen as well. "How'd it go today?'

"Unfair, that's how it is." Maureen's mood,. initially pleasant on seeing her grandparents, evaporated. "You're coming over here taking care of Mom, making good soup... Dad's helping... what am I supposed to do, sit on my thumbs?"

A twinkle sprang to Marlee's eyes, and an idea to her mind. "What would you do if she weren't sick?"

"Probably... run off to my room with homework, maybe waste time on social media, not come out until dinnertime..."

Gil took a lead. "In other words, you would sit on your thumbs." He and Maureen grinned as wide as you please.

He went on. "You'd keep outta the way... in short, you'd act like a real teenager. So go do that till we call for you... see, you're helpin' already." Maureen smiled, hugged the three of us again, and went off to her room to do exactly as we had discussed.

The soup was allowed to simmer until McCord got home, at around quarter to six. We then sat down to try it out, to check on my in-laws' judgment in trusting me with preparing the soup. Marlee said a short yet heartfelt grace, giving thanks for the meal and praying for the soon improvement of Emily's health; immediately after "Amen," she asked if we had a clean thermos nearby. I pulled one from the cupboard, and she got up to find a ladle in the drawer. Once a proper quantity of broth had been obtained, Marlee took the thermos down the hallway, to see if Emily would be feeling up to having some.

At the table, however, I noticed that McCord was displaying a half-hearted appetite. "You all right, son?... you're not... coming down with anything, are you?" I asked, from concern.

Between bites, he told me his mind. "Nothing against this soup... it's good stuff, thanks!... but isn't this supposed to be mostly for Mom?... don't wanna eat it all up and leave none for her."

I pointed back to the pot on the stove. "That pot's practically full near the top, and that's after the first couple bowls for each of us." McCord, finding the explanation satisfactory, led the charge in getting up to help himself to a second bowl. We all did the same; in so doing, we found out just how filling that soup was.

McCord needn't have worried about leaving enough soup for Emily -- two bowls each was filling enough and then some, for those of us with appetites. Gil didn't say much, but nodded to me with a light smile -- which counted with me as approval enough.

As we washed up, an idea came to me -- but before I put it into play, I thought I'd better look in on Emily first.

I walked down the hall and stepped in at the doorway. "How's it going... you okay?"

Emily was partially sitting up in bed, albeit at an angle of no more than thirty degrees or thereabouts, and smiled toward me. "Hey, babe -- I was able to get it down." This was a marked contrast to the morning, when even half a glass of water would, and had, upset her stomach.

Marlee smiled softly. "She'll be fine with another day or two of doing what we're doing." She turned briefly toward Emily, telling her, "And yes, I'm talking about you in front of your back." In response, Emily grinned and kissed the air in my direction. I did the same, then left Marlee to the work she was doing.

While McCord and Maureen went off to their respective rooms, and while Gil searched my living room shelf and found a book to his liking, I and my cell phone slipped away to the guest bedroom. Although I knew I might not get hold of him immediately, I tried to telephone Matthew. I was right -- I wound up having to leave a voicemail, after which I began to read a farm magazine from last week's mail.

Twenty minutes into my reading, I got a return call -- not from Matthew, though, but from Madison Hartman; she and Matthew had been high school sweethearts, and were married in 2019. Matthew knew of Emily's illness and of the Swindons' efforts, from a group text McCord had sent to him and to Michael; in turn, Matthew had thus told his Maddie. This, however, was not why I had called, and Maddie led off with discussing why. "You couldn't possibly have picked a worse time to try to call," she told me.

"Oh, I know I picked a bad time to try to get hold of anybody... but I picked a good enough time to leave somebody a voicemail, which is what I planned anyway," I countered.

"You know why this was a bad time," she insisted, and I knew full well why: she and Matthew had been busy, as they are nearly every night at seven, getting their daughter Angelique settled for bed.

Angelique turns three this coming March. With special thanks to her having inherited Maddie's charming sunshine-blonde hair and Carolina blue eyes, she has her Gamma (that is to say, Emily) and her Pop-Pop (yep, that's me) wound around her little finger -- but Emily in particular.

When Angelique was learning to talk intelligibly, she had some difficulty early on with the letter R; hence, her efforts to say "Grandma" came out as "Gamma," like the name of the Greek letter. She learned the R sound well enough in time, but Emily had earned what will always be her "grandma name," a badge of honor here in Missouri. Emily may be a hundred years old one day, from which it follows that Angelique will be in her fifties with her own grandkids, but even then, Angelique will still call Emily "Gamma" -- and I thought this relationship might play its own special role in helping Emily, hence my reason to call.

Maddie went on. "How's Miss Emily, by the way? I heard she was sick..."

"Yeah, I stayed home to help take care of her... and the Swindons came over and made soup, does that tell you anything?"

"Aww, sorry to hear that... anything we can do for her, or you? We remembered her at grace before dinner, but is there something more, something closer or substantial?"

"I'll look in tomorrow morning and see how Emily's doing... if she's any better, we need to work out a time and have you get hold of her."

"That's mighty thoughtful of you." I could hear the smile in her voice. "But you do understand, right? If Angelique doesn't keep to her sleep schedule, she'll be cranky and out of sorts all day tomorrow -- and that'll make me cranky and out of sorts all day. And you don't want that, now do you."

I remembered how it had been just that way when my own four, Matthew among them, had been toddlers -- so I was quick with, "No ma'am, I certainly do not."

We said our pleasant goodbyes and hung up -- just in time, too, as Gil had found me to tell me he was going back to his house for the night, to hold the fort for a couple hours before going to bed. I thanked him, wanting to shake his hand at first -- but he threw his arms around me to hug me. "You're doing a great job, son... let's keep it going."

"Isn't Marlee going home with you?'

"She's got a sleeping bag to break out when she sacks out, so she'll be fine." He turned on his heel. "Everybody else has already seen me off, so I guess this is 'till morning'... thanks again."

"And thank you." We hugged once more, and he left for his home, after which I wandered back toward my room.

"Oh, hi babe!" While Emily's voice reflected that she wasn't fully back up to snuff, she was smiling more broadly than she had done so far that day. More to the point, she was at least sitting up at a better angle than she had been at suppertime; that is to say, her back was fully perpendicular to the mattress. She fired off two pistol-shot coughs, then reached for a cough drop, peeled it, and started working it in her mouth. "I don't think I can go to work just yet, but I'm a sight better than I was -- still feverish, but down to ninety-nine-eight." She smiled again, then pointed toward Marlee. "And of course, care from the finest nurse in Campania County." As Emily said this, she and Marlee clutched hands, but gently.

"You need to rest up some more?" I offered. It was only eight o'clock or thereabouts, but for us, a hard-working day was dissolving into a slow night on the verge of winding down.

"Yeah, we'll do that shortly," Marlee said; while she spoke, she unplugged the alarm clock on Emily's nightstand and handed it to me.

"I told her to," Emily offered. "I won't be needing it." She then made a "come here" motion with her left hand; when I got to her, she bent her head so that I was able to kiss her forehead, lest I catch anything from her lips. She was still warmer than usual, but recovery was definitely in the offing.

"Not an intense fever like this morning, but... you're always gonna be one hot mama."

She took a playful swipe at my forearm. "I love you, ya goof."

"Love you right back," i countered; I then hugged Marlee. "Thank you so much, for everything."

"Never a problem." A tear escaped one eye, but she smiled proudly.

I opened our dresser drawer to pull out two blankets that hadn't been deployed for Emily. Once I had these, I picked up the clock, and got situated once I was in the guest room; I set the clock for six-fifteen, to make sure I could get the kids ready on time.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

My first thought, on hearing the alarm clock the next morning, was how I envied Emily in that moment. Not because she was sick, to be sure, but because she actually was getting to sleep in, uninterrupted by a clock -- something she hasn't been often able to do in the twenty-six years we've been parents.

I certainly wasn't going to begrudge her any sleeping in; besides, I had two kids to wake, and all our days to start. I made myself decent, woke the kids, then joined them for breakfast; we three agreed that, given as much soup as remained and having enough ingredients to make a whole second pot, it would be more than all right for us to have that, and even to have seconds. In fact, Maureen was helping herself to exactly such a second bowl when we heard a mid-forties female voice calling out, "Hey, save some for us, will ya?"

A grinning Emily was making her way down the hallway, in flannel pajamas and a bathrobe. Her left arm was hooked through Marlee's right; between them, Emily was leaning on a broom handle which served as a makeshift cane. Most significantly, Emily was well enough today to put on her glasses, which she's worn since she was nine to correct an astigmatism; for that matter, she was actually well enough today to care whether or not she even did so.

The kids and I stood as one to hug Emily and Marlee, but Emily shook us off for the moment until she and Marlee could sit down; afterwards, we all three hugged the two of them, and I dared risk kissing Emily on the lips. Thankfully, Marlee's light smile was the only reaction to that.

McCord and Maureen, having seated themselves again, decided to concentrate more intently on finishing breakfast than on making any snarky comments -- at least, as concerned seeing their parents kissing. Maureen, however, quickly found another topic of conversation: "Grandma... did you... did you fall asleep in your clothes?"

Marlee smiled; she had indeed slept in her sweatshirt and jeans, and their rumpled and wrinkled look showed as much. "Parenting 101, sweetheart... when I took care of your mom when she was little and would get sick, I fell asleep in my clothes more times than I can count." She looked across the table at her grandkids. "Your mom and dad did that for you kids, and you'll do it for yours one day." She grinned, knowingly. "And that's all I'll say about it at a table." She got up, fixed Emily a bowl, and brought it to her before doing the same for herself.

"So tell me," I asked Emily. "Scale to a hundred -- how do you feel today?"

She looked up from her soup. 'Can we do a scale to ten instead? That's quicker and easier." I nodded, and she answered, "I'd say... seven."

"Need me to stay on?" I asked while McCord and Maureen finished up, hugged and kissed Emily, and made off to get ready for their days.

"If you want... but if you need to go back to work, you can do that too."

At this point, I remembered the idea I had discussed the previous evening with Maddie, and thought it better to stay on so as to put that idea into play. "Nah, what's one more day," I said with a broad smile as I hugged both Emily and Marlee. "Work'll still be there on Monday, so I'll go then." As I said that, Emily and I took hands briefly.

As McCord and Maureen left for their day's doings, I called out, "Remember to get hold of Grandma Becky today." This was, as it happens, October 28, and the birthday of Rebecca Francis-Kelley -- or as I've known her all the days of my life, Mom.

"Don't worry, Dad, we will," McCord responded on his way out.

Maureen called out, "And don't you forget either."

"I won't!" I called back, happily; I then dashed off a group text to Matthew and Michael, reminding them as well. This done, I turned to Emily and Marlee, who were still taking their time at the soup. "Is it all right to excuse myself for a moment?"

"Where are you going?"

"To get my phone so I can call Mom."

"It can wait -- strike that. It will wait," Emily said impatiently. Implicit in her tone was the invocation of our family's "no cellphones at mealtime except in dire emergency" rule.

At that exact moment, my phone rang from its perch on a living room table.

"Leave it," said Emily.

"Can't I just see who it is?"

"Let 'em call back --" but I had already made it to the table, picked up, and answered.

"Jason! Put that phone down! Talk later," Emily hissed, but I waved her off.

"Mister Jay?" True to our conversation the previous evening, this was Maddie.

"Oh hey sweetheart... what's going on?" I kept talking, while Emily shot daggers at me while whispering "Not now!" Marlee, for her own part, looked thoroughly disappointed, not only that I would answer my phone during a meal, but that I was so actively ignoring her daughter.

"Matthew just left for work, and I finished cleaning Angelique off..."

"Perfect.. is she close by?"

"Yeah, right here." A few seconds later, "Here she is."

"Let's handle this," I said as I put the call on speaker. "All right, take it."

"Pop-Pop?" Angelique's voice came across.

"Ohh, how's my big girl?" I smiled back at Emily and Marlee. Marlee smiled in return at the sound of the voice of her first great-grandchild; Emily, meanwhile, had a "You clever, cheeky, underhanded asshole -- you set me up, and I love you for it" grin at the corners of her lips.

"Hi Pop-Pop, how's you?"

"Oh, I'm doing all right... say, why don't you ask your Gamma how she's doing?"

"Gamma!" At the mention of Emily, there came into Angelique's tone and expression a light I could feel, and could see shining and reflecting from the faces of the two Swindon ladies at the table.

Emily planted herself squarely in the driver's seat. "Yeah, baby, it's me, it's Gamma."

"How's you, Gamma? You sick?"

Emily's tone and timbre had given her away -- she might have been well enough to come and eat breakfast with us, but she wasn't yet completely going-into-work better. "Yeah, I was pretty bad yesterday, and better today, but I still got some of the bad stuff hangin' around."

"We ask Jesus, make you better?"

My insides clenched. I've gone to church all my life, and have therefore heard plenty about having a simple faith, like that of a child; actually putting it into practice, however, is another matter entirely, especially as concerns how quickly someone can recover from being as sick as Emily had been the day before, or in explaining how real recovery takes time.