The Doorstep Diaries, Day 28

Do you know what they did this week?

They served vegetable soup. That was Monday. Tuesday, they served minestrone. Same broth, but with meat added. I say meat because I don’t know what animal it was. I never can. Today it was the same vegetables and the same meat, but a bit more congealed. They called it beef stew. This is cruel.

The kid started getting sick, too. Really sick. There comes a point in cancer where the chemo either works or it starts killing you. Well, that’s where he was at. Shivering. Cold. Meek looking. Radiation poisoning.

So I started up the paperwork. I put in a routing request, reserved a space, got a tag number. The usual. I’m not saying I wanted the kid to die, whatever, but the sooner I can get a real meal the better, and he was fading. It wasn’t a secret anymore. Not since Monday.

That’s when Sally brought the cookies. They laid out there between Tom and her on that plastic tray. It was brutal. She wanted him to eat them, he wanted to eat them. He didn’t cough. He had stopped coughing when she came around. It was all right there in those oatmeal morsels. Every ounce of that secret measured out in butter and sugar and oats. He was dying.

When she had gone and Tom was asleep Nurse put the cookies away. That night she even spoon fed him some Jell-o, and then tucked those cookies in a drawer. It was nice. I think those cookies were her problem from the start.

They’re gone now. They were gone by Tuesday. I couldn’t help it. That was minestrone day. Sally can cook.

Beef stew. Lord.