Chapter 9: The Soup My Mother Made
My mother had made chicken soup.
Not from a can.
The real kind, with the broth that takes hours and the noodles she adds at the end so they don't go soft.
Maya was sitting at her kitchen table with a bowl in front of her and my mother across from her, and they were talking about the bear.
Maya had brought it with her.
"His name is Captain," Maya was explaining.
"Grandma named him.
She said every bear needs a rank."
My mother smiled.
"Your grandmother was a very sensible woman."
I stood in the doorway for a moment before either of them noticed me.
Maya's spoon was moving in slow circles.
Captain was propped against the salt shaker.
My mother looked up first.
She didn't ask me anything.
She just stood and got another bowl from the cabinet.
I sat down next to Maya.
"How's the soup?"
"It's the best," Maya said.
"Grandma put dill in it."
"She always puts dill in it."
"I know.
It's the best part."
My mother set a bowl in front of me and sat back down.
We ate.
Maya told us about the weather project again, the one she'd mentioned the night before.
Cold fronts and warm fronts and the way they collide to make storms.
She was very precise about it.
She had clearly been thinking about it.
After the soup, my mother took Maya to the living room to watch something, and I stayed at the kitchen table.
My mother came back after a few minutes and sat down across from me.
"How bad?" she said.
"Bad enough."
"Is it over?"
"The marriage is.
The rest will take time."
She nodded.
She folded her hands on the table.
"Maya knows something happened.
She's a perceptive child."
"I know."
"She's not frightened.
I want you to know that.
She was calm when she arrived.
She asked me if Captain would be safe here, and when I said yes, she relaxed."
I looked at the doorway.
"She's been worried about that bear for a while," I said.
"Children notice more than we think they do." My mother paused.
"She told me Diana never called her by her name."
I looked back at her.
"She said Diana always called her 'the child.' Or 'she.' Never Maya."
I hadn't known that.
I hadn't noticed.
I sat with the weight of that for a moment — the things that had been happening in my own house that I had not seen.
"I should have paid more attention," I said.
My mother reached across and put her hand over mine.
"You came home," she said.
"You believed her.
You picked up the suitcase." She squeezed once, then let go.
"That's not nothing, William."
From the living room, I could hear the television.
And under it, Maya's voice, explaining something to the screen the way children do when they're comfortable.
Talking back to a cartoon.
Correcting it on some point of fact.
I picked up my coffee cup.
It was empty.
May you like
I hadn't noticed.
My mother got up without being asked and refilled it.
