Soup's On

I needn't have worried -- Emily took charge, swiftly and adeptly. "Oh yeah, we'll do that... and also, sweetie? Your Gamma's got something to tell you."

"What's that?"

"Well, sweetheart, it's like this -- we've all got big wheels inside us."

"We do?!" Even from around the table, we could sense how Angelique, as reflected in her voice, had turned into a typical two-year-old bundle of curiosity and wonder.

"Yeah, Jesus put those wheels inside us all... they're small enough to fit inside us, but they do big things."

"What big things?"

"They're spinning around all the time, to catch the bad stuff that gets in our bodies."

"They do, Gamma?"

"Yeah, baby, they do -- and when bad stuff gets in, like it did with me, it trips and falls over those wheels, and that makes them spin faster to get rid of the bad stuff."

"They gonna spin real fast?"

"They're spinning real fast now... 'cause your Gamma has soup to eat, juice to drink... and the best big girl in the world to make me feel better."

"I love you, Gamma -- you and," and in the middle of Angelique's naming virtually everyone she knew, Gil walked through the door and sat at the table; Marlee motioned him, wordlessly, to sit down.

"We love you too, baby."

"Mommy wanna talk? You talk to Gamma?"

"All right, sure!" That was now Maddie; in the background, Angelique came across with, "Bye bye, love you!"

"So how're you feeling today, Miss Emily?" Maddie asked, while Angelique played happily in the background.

Emily wiped away a couple stray tears, and laughed ironically over the slight break in her voice. "Never better."

"You must be doing better -- I heard you were pretty bad off yesterday."

"I've gone from down for the count all day yesterday to up and eating breakfast today, so that counts for something, doesn't it?" The smile returned to Emily's face as she said this. Her parents and I all smiled back and forth across the table, to have a family member who can weave faith so well with a basic explanation of immunology, and thus to explain it to a two-year-old.

"I heard what you were telling Angelique... I'm happy to hear you're doing better, and, well... let's just keep those wheels spinning, you hear?" The tone of Emily's recovery was contagious enough to spark the enthusiasm we heard in Maddie's voice, and with it our own.

"I will, love." By this point, Emily was beaming. "I wish I could hug you both up, but this'll have to do till then."

"Sunday maybe? Hope you're well enough to come to church."

"We'll see." The optimism in Emily's voice spread around the table and down the phone line.

"Okay, you have a granddaughter who needs a nap... I better get going and set her down for that."

"Thank you so much for this little.... little pick me up." Emily blinked again and smiled more broadly than before, making no attempt to hide a tear.

We all said our "I love you"s, hung up, and offered Gil a bowl of soup; he smiled and didn't refuse.

"Good to see you better," he said, patting Emily twice on the left shoulder. He then sat down for his bowl and turned to me, an uncharacteristically impish grin on his face: "We're glad to help out with your wife -- but what say you let mine come back home with me sometime?" He took a bite, then shifted gears to ask Marlee. "Your call, of course."

Marlee made an open-handed gesture toward Emily, who was at the stove ladling out a second helping of soup for herself. "Well, we've got her past the worst of it, it looks like... but we could stay a little longer, couldn't we?" When Gil showed his apprehensive face, Marlee showed forth her wiles and charm toward him: "We can't eat all this. Neighbors" -- by which she meant McCord and Maureen -- "gotta have some too, and if we run low, we gotta make 'em some."

Gil leaned in and playfully kissed his wife of fifty years. "Yeah, I know how that is, gotta do for neighbors."

Emily, instead of paying attention to her parents' goings-on, had gone to the refrigerator and brought out a half gallon of orange juice. She Immediately began drinking directly from it, and that with a good gusto. "Don't mind me," she admonished between swallows while sitting back down at the table; within four minutes, she'd polished the whole thing off. "Yep -- feelin' better already," she grinned; her parents and I grinned right back, to see her at least in ostensibly better health and spirits.

While we sat around trying to figure out how to pass the time, the time passed on its own, quite without our help. Conversation, insofar as it can be called that, was mostly sparse and inconsequential; we talked mostly about how Gil's small farm had done, family members' initial plans for dining at this house or that on Thanksgiving Day, and whether my Missouri Tigers could pull their heads out of their asses, break their losing streak, and get bowl eligible. We were, however, only able to keep these lines of conversation going for twenty minutes from the start of the first to the end of the last. At this moment, I nudged my phone in Emily's direction. "How about you follow my own advice."

"Hmm?"

"Maybe you should be the one to call Mom."

"Why me?" Emily was quizzical, then checked herself. "Don't get me wrong, I love her, as we all do -- but she's your mother. Dontcha think her own son should take the lead on her birthday?"

"I am taking the lead, having you call. After all, I did tell her you were as sick as you were --"

"What? You didn't -- Jason!" Her face took on a dejected expression.

Gil stepped in. "Cut out this bickering, both of you!" Then, in a softer tone directed toward Emily, "Jack's been my best friend since I was in first grade, and you know well that he and Becky love you as their own -- so you know they'll care about your health." He patted her hand. "Besides... as sick as you were yesterday, it'll do Becky an awful lot of good to hear you this much better, today of all days."

Emily shot a conspiratorial smirk, mixed with recognition and with the happiness of feeling as she did, back around the table at the three of us. "Hey, yeah, you're right!" She then picked up and dialed, putting it on speaker for all our benefits.

"Good morning, sweetheart!" Mom said as she picked up.

"Morning, Miss Becky," Emily said with a warm smile.

"You sound wonderful -- Jason told me you were sick yesterday."

"Mom and Dad came over to help out -- what's that tell ya?"

"I get your point now." Mom was understanding in her tone, knowing Emily's reputation for being stubborn about accepting help when sick. "You do sound better, though, and that makes us all happy."

"Yeah, they made me soup, brought juice... and earlier his morning, I got to talk to the sweetest grandbaby a girl could have." Emily, with her free hand, squeezed my own free hand, in salute of my little stratagem. "That's the business -- now for the pleasure." She winked at us all. "Happy birthday, Miss Becky." We all called out the same.

"Ohh, thank you all so much."

"Yeah, what she said." Dad had come along in the background. "And it's good to hear you feeling better, Emily."

"So whatcha got in mind for today?" Gil asked.

"This fine gentleman's taking me to lunch, and then Trevor" -- my youngest brother, who lives near them but in a different suburb of St Louis -- "is bringing his family, and we're going out for dinner tonight."

"We'll keep working on this soup," Emily grinned with a little laugh.

"Ohh, Marlee's soup -- stuff of legends," Dad said admiringly. "But you being better, that's the best taste of all."

"Yeah, feeling better's growing on me... do we need to let you get ready?"

"Probably be a good idea... thanks for calling, we love you so much, glad to hear from you. Oh, and Maureen texted when she got to school. So thoughtful..."

Gil's voice was half Staff Sergeant Swindon, half Grandpa with encouragement. "Those boys better get on the stick."

"I know they will," Dad offered contently.

We exchanged our "I love you"s, wished Mom happy birthday once more, and hung up, trying now to decide about the rest of the day. Emily decided on a hot bath after lunch, followed by resting under blankets -- which would be another round of soup, as likewise would dinner. Marlee would be her spotter, as she had been yesterday; meanwhile, Gil and I decided that this was a day to find some mindless dreck on TV, keeping ourselves thus occupied until Maureen, and then McCord in his turn, got home.

Though there was still about a third of the pot left at dinnertime, we six worked it over with a vigor until none was left. Afterward, while the empty soup pot was set in to soak, McCord went to the garage to work on what had been a 1959 Chevy, which he had found in a creek bed on the property of a 2021 senior classmate and was working to restore. Maureen, meanwhile, disappeared to her room to chat on social media with this friend on whose land McCord had found the Chevy -- Liam Pierce, who also happens to be her boyfriend of the last six months.

With the kids thus occupied, we adults sat around, watched a little more TV, and chatted for an hour or so about whatever came to mind.

Around seven-thirty, Gil stood up. "Thanks for having us here, but I should probably be getting home."

"It's okay, Mom." Emily nodded as Marlee hesitated. "Thank you so much for what you did these last couple days... but you and I both need to put our arms around our husbands tonight."

"You sure you're okay?"

Emily kissed Marlee on the forehead. "I feel well enough to do this, don't i?"

We all smiled and hugged; Marlee went up to Maureen's room to tell her good night. Maureen came down long enough to hug her grandparents, then made tracks back to her room and chatting up her Liam.

We said good night, after which Gil and Marlee stopped by the garage to tell McCord good night.

Once the living room was just the two of us, Emily and I sat down on the couch, threading our fingers together as she rested her head on my chest; at length, she spoke. "Remember how it used to be, right after Matthew was born, and you came back down for that first summer afterward... not the summer we got married, but the one before that?"

I twirled some of her hair around my right index finger. "i felt so close to you... loved you that much more than I had before he came along."

"Remember what else?"

"Tell me," I smiled.

"We'd just hold each other like this for hours on end, without end..." She grinned, then kissed me right on the lips. "Yeah, I wouldn't have traded any of the kids for anything at all, then or now, but he was a lotta work... remember how we spent that summer too tired to ever make love, so we just held each other and kissed?"

"And I thought the same then as I do now, and will forever... there's no one I'd rather be 'too tired' with than you."

"Out here, or" -- she pointed toward our room -- "in there?"

"I've missed being in there," I smiled.

We kissed again, got up, and sat around our room. We watched a little TV and tried our hand at the Springfield newspaper's crossword puzzle, until going to bed at around ten o'clock.

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

The next morning, a Saturday morning, rolled around, and I rolled over. Sometimes, Emily will turn and sleep on her right side, and so will I so I can hold her; though we had fallen asleep in that position, now, at about seven o'clock, she wasn't there. I called her name just long enough to catch the smell of coffee.

I made myself decent and got to the breakfast table, to find McCord and Maureen tucking into hearty plates of one of Emily's s specialties, which she had learned from Marlee -- chocolate chip French toast.

"What, no soup?" I asked, in a mock-incredulous tone for comic effect.

"Soup, schmoup," Emily said with a light laugh. "It was great stuff, and it served its turn beautifully, but we better move on for a while." She passed me a plate of French toast. "Saved some for you," she said between bites. "Here, siddown... we need to build ourselves up Got things around the house today, church tomorrow, work on Monday --"

"You're feeling up to those things, then?"

"I am if you are." She grinned, and we kissed.

McCord turned my humorous tone on Emily and me. "Must you?"

I poured myself a cup, then set him right. "We're only doing this out here because we don't have a coffee maker in our room -- yet."

Maureen clucked her tongue. "Now I know what to get you guys for Christmas."

Emily and I spent most of the day puttering around and making dents on odd projects, the kind that need to be finished before colder weather gets more firmly entrenched; the kids had their own respective things to do, and so they did them all day. Only half-heartedly did I listen to my Tigers on the radio that afternoon -- but they won for the first time in a month, so that worked out. Dinner was nondescript, but otherwise good; as we had done the previous evening, Emily and I puttered around with idle pursuits before falling asleep in each other's arms.

Sunday saw us all well and in church. As might be expected, Angelique was overjoyed to see her Gamma in that much better health. "Jesus turned the wheels!" she called out, running toward Emily to hug her.

Angelique is fast approaching being too big for Emily or me to pick up -- but Emily did, her face a solid smile as wide as Campania County itself. "Yeah, he turned those wheels real fast, so I could see my big girl today!" She then kissed Angelique on the forehead. "Now you go take care of your mommy and daddy for me, okay?"

"Love you, Gamma!" Angelique trotted off to join Matthew and Maddie.

I reached for Emily's hand. "Know who else does?"

"I can think of a few," she grinned. "Any particular person you have in mind?"

"Well, Angelique's Pop-Pop is kinda fond of you." I kissed my Emily as we went into the building; next day, with life and health back to what passes for normal, we were back at work.

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

In the time between then and now, we've all kept in good health, and therefore haven't needed such heavy artillery as on that weekend. We may well need the soup again before the winter's over, however, and we will definitely want a few days' worth in January and February. It's wonderful in its own right; even if it weren't, it almost makes getting sick worthwhile...

almost.