turkey soup

I wrote this about two years ago. I've always really liked it but never been quite sure what to do with it--I don't think it's finished. But given that two years have gone by and I've not gone back to it, it's hard to say what may happen. Isn't that always the case?

Your voice is a mockingbird, calling me when the day is done.

"How is it you are always here, when I least need you?"

"There doesn't need to be an explanation."

How true this feels to you is the only truth that matters. The weird echo in your voice is a sound only my ears hear. The day that you couldn't get out of bed because of the migraine, the same day you turned your phone off completely for the first time since you bought it, that's the day that cemented it for me. I wouldn’t let you cook that day, making turkey soup with the stock you made out of the Thanksgiving bones. I didn’t know how to make it but I found a recipe online. You ate two bowls and I felt strangely proud. Later that night we watched June Carter yodel and Johnny Cash try to stifle a laugh.

But the phone bothered me, far more than your migraine. The migraine could mean an aneurysm was around the corner but that would be completely out of my hands and I saw no point in dwelling on it. The phone, though—you were always on that thing, even shouting into it while driving (that did bother me, I can say this now.) When you charged it, you left it turned on. At home you moved the charging cable and the phone itself from room to room if you planned on being in that room for more than a few minutes. You never received many texts—maybe half a dozen per week. And calls were rare. I never pretended to understand it but I accepted it. And then to suddenly turn it off—honestly, I wasn’t sure you even knew how. (I’m not being fair, but it’s true.) What if you received a text? What about your calendar reminders? What if you got the urge for a game of Angry Birds? But you shrugged all of this off and pulled the pillow over your head. Then you asked me to take the phone from the room. I did so, cradling it as you would a wounded sparrow.

I froze the remains of the turkey soup. It was a huge batch. I knew you’d never eat it unless I warmed it up but I couldn’t just throw it out. I don’t think you ever pay attention to what is in your freezer. It’s a remote object, more like a desolate Antarctic plain on one of those nature specials you’re so fond of than a repository for food. Putting the soup in there was like condemning it to a long, slow death. Making it irrelevant. Unless I heat it up for you sometime. It’s funny, having that small sense of power. I accept the responsibility. There should be a better explanation but that’s as good of one as there will ever be. Again, I accept the responsibility. I’ve condemned the soup to a frozen death, but if I choose I can bring it back to life.

Your migraine eventually went away as I knew it would. But you still didn’t ask for your phone back. I wasn’t sure what to make of this. I spent far too many hours searching online, to see if this behavior had manifested itself elsewhere, but got nowhere. That’s the trouble with online stories—it’s so easy to lie. How do you know what to trust? Even the turkey soup recipe could have been some kind of poison, but at least I had the chance to study it as it cooked, to watch for signs. But behavioral advice, well, it could be anyone saying anything. Yet I needn’t have worried, because I couldn’t find anything. All those hours and nothing at all. Maybe I’m just not good at online searching, but it’s not the kind of thing I feel comfortable asking for assistance on. Sometimes you really must try and figure out things yourself.

What if I send my problems to the United Nations?

“You are so excessive, while so many starve.”

“You are starving. Eat now.”

You never told me why World War I upsets you so much. As far as I know, you had no direct family involved in the fighting, though of course that was almost a century ago and records from that time are not always reliable. It seems like something you would mention, given the adverse reaction you have to the topic. I still have a burn mark on my arm from the hot soup you threw at me when I brought up the eleven offenses on the Isonzo front. And I know I never lost that CD of WWI songs. I don’t lose valuable things. You especially hated Three Wonderful Letters from Home. You didn’t need resort to subterfuge, though—I had not played it around you in months when it went missing. I boxed up my books and hid the bookmarked websites under a different profile on the laptop you favored. There was nothing around you to remind you of the Great War. Nothing of any historical value.

 There’s nothing better than a deep hit of morning sun, I wanted to tell you. It’s not accurate to say that I threw open all the drapes but I did open the blinds. How long had it been since we’d seen the sun? Many seasons, it felt like, though of course it had not been so long. I wish you would have let me assist you to the couch so you could feel the sun. There are no windows in the bedroom and I feared the return of migraine. Perhaps the sun would bring back your appetite, and there was plenty of soup in the freezer. (O death O death.) But you insisted on staying in bed, and I acquiesced. It is hard to make decisions under pressure and perhaps I made the wrong one.

I was perhaps the most saddened when you asked about the Spanish doors. So much had been damaged, back then. I do believe you would have ripped the doors right off the hinges and taken them with you, had you known. Leaned them up in the bedroom where you could look at them any time you wished. Maybe the doors would have encouraged your appetite. You told me how you used to admire them every time you ate breakfast. I can picture you, eating your maple granola and memorizing every detail, every contour in the wood. I don’t remember what I said but it wasn’t the truth of what happened. Sometimes the truth really shouldn’t be uttered. What I said was bad enough, judging by the tears that followed. Yet you were quiet and would not allow me to wipe the tears away.

The river that runs with love will never run dry.

“Why won’t you just let it go?”

“This will help.”

                I opened the curtains while you were still asleep and this time I did not wake you in the process. I thought it best to press my luck, now, before I lost my resolve. I removed the drapes and took them to the washing machine, where I could deal with them later. There was still the matter of the blinds. I slipped back into the room where you lay on your back, the covers carelessly thrown to the side. I watched your chest rise and fall, hypnotized by the steady rhythm. Such a sight is what the monks spend their lifetimes in their brick prisons hoping to see but never do. Yet I could not afford to dawdle. I slid around the bed and gently lifted the frayed white string. As the blinds began to rise, they emitted what sounded like a shriek to my ears but was scarcely a whisper to yours. I turned and watched. You did not move. I raised the blinds all the way and then slid them forward. The plastic fasteners had lost their cover pieces long ago and the blinds fell gently into my hands. Quickly I left the room and took them to the trash outside.

                Still you slept. That I could be so lucky. O death O death.

                By the time the room was fully dismantled my muscles ached and the sweat in my eyes stung. I feared the rain but it held off and we were treated to nothing more than gray clouds and a chilly but not outright cold temperature. I was positive that you would wake up, shivering, and ask me to rebuild the room. Or perhaps you would finally be ready to eat, to let the turkey soup warm your blood, block the elements from your bones. All these things I thought yet none of them were to become true. You slept and you slept and I could never sleep as I watched you and watched over you, sometimes from a distance and sometimes less than a centimeter away. I could feel your breath but you did not wake. I wondered if I should dismantle the freezer as well but I did not.

                I worried about you. I thought of the phone, the Spanish doors, WWI…but mostly of the soup. The migraine. You sleeping as though none of this happened. I got up and rebuilt the room. When I finished, I went into the kitchen but did not thaw the turkey soup. I found half an enchilada and ate that instead. It seemed to take forever to finish, but I had time. So much time. If you’d only listened. If you’d only been aware.