Dwelling Places by Vinita Hampton Wright Page A

alone and buy tiny bits at a time. For a few extra cents, Bud slices and chops, trims fat, divides chickens. The remains—bones, gristle, fat, innards—go into plastic ice cream containers in the back freezer. Rita picks them up, takes them home, and boils the life out of them. Boils them with bits of nearly too far gone onion and pepper, with the herbs from her little garden. She lets the pots of cast-off goods simmer all day on the back burner while she goes about her business. When she has steeped the last rumor of flavor from marrow and cartilage, she strains the broth twice and stores it in bags in the freezer. On Saturdays she makes soup—from the stock she’s boiled and from the leftover vegetables from Bud. Week in and week out, in all kinds of weather, Rita gathers questionable goods and makes soup. She has done this for five years.
    This practice started because of Bernie Hallsted. Eighty-four years old and too feeble and absentminded to cook for himself, he lives two doors north of Rita. Bernie developed the habit of making one can of tuna and one can of pork-and-beans last a week. Just left them sitting there in the fridge. That, and crackers. Rita happened to lookin Bernie’s fridge one day when she dropped off a prescription and asked if he had some cold water to drink. She found the chipped plastic container with ice water in it, a dried-up bottle of Tabasco in the door, and the two cans, forks sticking out of them, on the second shelf.
    That day Rita went home and wept for the first time in years. The next day she concocted soup from whatever was in reach and took it over to Bernie. He lapped it up, his face shining with happy surprise.
    â€œI’ll bring you bean soup next week.”
    â€œOh—navy bean?”
    â€œIf that’s what you like.”
    â€œOh, sure. Love navy bean soup.”
    The next week it was navy bean with bits of ham left over after a church potluck.
    She started looking carefully then at other seniors who lived around her. She realized that nearly everyone in her neighborhood was old, retired, without a spouse, and barely making it on Social Security. It was especially hard for those with medical bills, which included nearly everyone. Several people had stopped taking medicine, since they couldn’t afford prescriptions and the light bill in the same month. Groceries were often one of the first expenses to eliminate, after the telephone.
    One gray day in late August—a close, irritating day when dust and sour smells clung to everything—Rita nearly passed out from the heat in her kitchen. She’d gone to Bud’s and bought up all the vegetables she could afford, along with beans and stew meat. It was ninety in the shade, but never mind, soup was the best way to get nearly every food group accounted for: rice and kidney beans, onions, peppers, zucchini, corn, tomatoes. Faded celery leaves, sprigs of thyme from her patch outside, lots of salt and pepper—old folks couldn’t taste too well. For good measure she’d added a glob of peanut butter, which thickened the broth and added flavor. The pot was filled to the brim before she began dipping its brew into mason jars. At four in the afternoon, she hauled a cardboard box full of sixteen jars, all gleamingand warm. Real food floating in there. Nothing starched up or full of additives. It didn’t taste bad.
    She offered the same transparent story at every doorstep. I made way too much soup—all those years of feeding a family, can’t get out of the habit of making enough for an army. It’s not much, just old vegetable soup. Hope you like it. The next week she couldn’t think of a story that was plausible. Edie, d’you like the soup last week? I’m trying a new recipe this time around. Tell me what you think. After that, she didn’t explain, and the acceptance was settled. She’d take soup on Saturdays. Along about Thursday, the squeaky clean