Research: Journals
The Journal
Issue 33.1
J. David Stevens
SoupThe morning after the dinner party, they found the pot of soup on the stove. She had asked him to put it away, she said, but he clearly recalled that she had offered to do it.
The next morning–the pot still there–she said it was like the time he forgot to water the lawn and the grass had turned brown. He said it was more like the time she left the parking brake engaged, damaging the transmission. They looked at the pot, then at each other, then at the fridge a few feet away.
Later that week, she clanged the pot's side with a wooden spoon, saying it was like the time he forgot the cat's pills and the feline died, but only after its hair fell out and it puked all over the rug. He said it was more like the time she'd failed to mail the taxes and cost them a summer vacation in penalties. Then, in a thrust at closure, he said the soup hadn't tasted right to begin with, so why not throw it out? She reminded him that the recipe had come from his mother, which she meant informatively as much as anything else. But he replied, "Really, my mother again?"
The soup changed colors. Through the glass lid, they could see it foaming toward the lip of the pot, rising further each day. She said it was like the time he'd lost their son before closing at the amusement park, which could explain the boy's night terrors. He said it was more like the time she ignored the complaints of her cousin, who barely survived the peritonitis and had to endure two corrective surgeries.
She took the children to her sister's. He said it was like the last time she took the children to her sister's. He spent the night at a "friend's" apartment. She said, "The whore."
Even the lawyers lost patience. "We'll sell the place for you," they pleaded, "if you'll just get rid of that pot." To which she would say only that each moment with him had been a small death–a daily genocide of the soul. And he stammered into the phone, "Didn't I tell you? It's like everything else she could never understand."
