Dwelling Places by Vinita Hampton Wright Page B

jars would show up on her back step, little thank-you notes or no notes at all. Sometimes there’d be a can of beans or something: Had extra. Maybe you can use this.
    But Rita was on a fixed income too, and soon after she began making soup for her neighbors she was picking up those Saran-wrapped odds and ends on the less-than-glorious table of the produce section. After a while Bud caught on (hard not to do when a dozen senior citizens tell you within the same few days that Rita makes the best darn soup—and have that happen three weeks in a row), and he made sure Rita found everything there was to find. He saw her eyeing the stew meat and walking on by, and the thought struck him about the meat scraps. And then the day-old bakery items.
    Now it is custom and sacred, Rita’s soup. No more dried-out, stinky cans of tuna stretched beyond possibility. In the winter she bakes bread sometimes to go with the soup. But most weeks there is bread enough from the day-old supply.
    Rita has always been a decent cook, although, on a farm, you cooked what was in season, and there were never a lot of extras to spice things up. You could be creative within limits. Jodie bought her starts of herbs one Christmas, and between the two of them they kept most of the plants alive through a nearly sunless winter. Now Rita’s herb garden takes over a new square yard of ground with each summer. So maybe her cooking is better, even if it’s mostly soups and casseroles.
    It was never her intent to become the neighborhood cook. She’s not terribly fond of cooking. But sometimes a thing just clearly needsto be done, and no one else is doing it. Maybe no one else is left to do it—the kids are all grown and moved away; the husband or wife is gone. Rita thinks that a lot of holy callings must happen just this way. Some little congregation without a pastor can’t afford one of those seminary graduates from the city. Bill Winney’s son is a good boy with a strong voice; he loves talking about God and has a soft spot for people. Hard to say which happens first—the call into a preaching ministry or a need that leads to a solution. If soup every Saturday is a divine solution, then it is the only such divinity Rita has touched in her lifetime. It isn’t much, but, at her age, it will have to be enough.
    She finishes her shopping at Bud’s, stops at the pharmacy—the only other real business left on Main Street—picks up prescriptions for Flo Dansen and Eloise Waul, then gets mail for half a dozen people and makes her deliveries. The car behaves itself, although the first few times she switches it off a little panic grabs her. Here in town, she could walk to about anyplace she needs to go, but she is used to having a car with a seat and plenty of room to stash things. She’ll lock herself up in her own house the day she has to wander the streets with a grocery cart like some city bag lady.
    At Eloise’s place, she visits for twenty minutes because Eloise has no family left and is too feeble to go to church regularly anymore.
    â€œEloise, I got your prescriptions here. You need anything from the store?” Rita’s voice booms in the small living room where Eloise spends most of her time. She has retired in the same sizable house where she raised her children, but she lives in essentially two rooms of it now.
    â€œOh, no. No need to bother any.” Eloise has the round, smiley face of a woman who once looked like a perfect china doll. She reaches out with cool, paper-thin fingers to grasp Rita’s hand. Her eyes are light blue and watery, looking as if they see when mostly they remember. “Thank you, Rita. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
    â€œWell, you know my number if you need anything.”
    â€œI do. But I’m just fine. Could you bring me a glass of water? I’ll take these pills right now before I forget.”
    Rita gets the water, remembering