From the story, When Murray Met Helen
Having given it the thought it deserved, Helen waited three days after Groundhog Day before she exhumed her largest kettle from a bottom shelf in her pantry. She then made chicken soup from scratch. She used barley instead of noodles, a dozen large carrots, a whole stalk of celery, shiitake mushrooms, two eye-stinging onions, half a pint of Guinness, a smattering of peas and thumb-sized chunks of chicken.
The steam from the project condensed on the cold window panes, giving her the sense that she was engaged in a religious ceremony, like a chicken soup exorcism. Which is about she wanted.
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She was ready to enjoy her first bowl of this deeply healing composition when the doorbell rang and there, on the front porch, was an FTD delivery. They were irises from Rick, the sweetly vulnerable paramedic who, in his note, hoped that she’d not forgotten him.
The message gave her pause. She was not yet in a state of mind where she wanted anything of the present, other than Miles the kitten, to put demands upon her. She was very clear about that, so much so that she momentarily considered tossing the damn bouquet out into the snow. Yet, that seemed rude, and it was not as though Rick was sending her flowers in order to annoy her.
So she set them, momentarily, on the table next to the large conch shell that had come from the bottom layer in Murray’s final crate.
Ingenious, she thought, how Murray had fashioned snorkeling goggles from pieces of glass, bamboo, and a bicycle inner tube. He didn’t include in his journal the name of the person who took the photos of him with his Polynesian lover. But maybe it was she who took the photo of him standing waist-deep in the lagoon, lifting a freshly-speared, giant trevally.
It startled Helen that Murray looked like a young, deeply tanned, Gregory Peck back then, smokingly handsome with a playful look of guile and confidence.
“You devil you,” she’d finally said to the picture, with a wistful laugh, as if Murray were in the room with her.
The irises were soon transferred to a vase in the dining room table. She set the steaming bowl of soup on a place mat and then, before eating, leaned forward into the vapors to take a deep breath.
