Soup For Kennedy

The bacon strips glow with a rosy hue, interrupted by flecks of light. As she peeled them apart, they made a sticky sound, like they knew what was coming and didn’t want to let go of the past. Despite their resistance, she tossed each piece onto the grill without the slightest hint of pity. After all, wasn’t this the purpose of bacon? To be cooked? She had a job to carry out, and so did those crispy slices of pig.

Vivian was hired when he was elected, that man that had spark wildfires in the hearts of millions. And ever since, she had cooked Kennedy’s bacon in this huge ivory house, so she could crumble it into his favorite dish. Potato-bacon soup. Sundays were soup days. She would often glimpse him swallowing spoonfuls of the mixture. She had voted for him on paper, but each Sunday, she voted for him with potatoes, cream, and chunks of bacon.

She hurried through her front door as her fingers reached to untie her apron strings. She never wore her apron when she cooked at home. Her three-year old daughter, Ava, trailed behind, entranced by a battered plush giraffe. The mother reached for her daughter’s hand and helped her climb into a chair. She turned on the TV while she began to pour baby carrots into Ava’s favorite fluorescent pink bowl. The TV screen undulated with the scenes from the daily news. “Ava, honey, what do you want for dinner?” Ava answered while munching clumsily on carrots. “Tato-Baken Soop.” “Ava, you know I only make that on special occasions and mommy doesn’t have the ingredients right now. That’s the president’s special favorite. So we can’t have that today.” To Vivian, that dish seemed too sacred to make on a regular old Tuesday night. “Okay mommy, but I wanna be the presdent when I grow up. Will you make it then?” “Sweetie, when you’re the president, I will make you potato-bacon soup every night, and we can eat it together. Does that sound good?” “Promise, mommy?” “I promise,” Vivian answered.

She bent at the waist and kissed her daughter on the nose. They eventually decided on macaroni, and Vivian poured the hard noodles into their boiling bath. While she was sliding cheddar cheese over the grater, the TV suddenly shouted “Breaking News! Breaking News!” Concerned, Vivian grabbed Ava and rushed to the worn couch in front of the TV. “President Kennedy has been assassinated…” Vivian stopped listening after that. The shock hit her, and she almost couldn’t bring herself to comfort her teary daughter. “Isn’t that the president, mommy? Don’t you work for him?” Ava said. “Yes, it was. I did work for him,” was all the response her mother could muster. After Vivian dragged herself off the couch, she remembered that her daughter needed to eat. Her duty as a mother allowed her to fix her daughter macaroni and send her to bed. But Vivian did not eat that night, or the next day.

The new administration was hiring a fresh set of staff for the White House. Vivian’s soup didn’t quite taste good enough to the new First Lady. Vivian got a job at a cafe in Georgetown, and her daughter grew. On Ava’s sixteenth birthday, she asked her mother for that soup. That soup. Vivian loved her grief, but she loved Ava more. So she went to the store, choosing firm potatoes, thick cream, and bacon that would soon surrender to its purpose. She was worried that she had forgotten. But when her knife bit into the wood-colored potatoes, she remembered. She remembered the Sundays spent sweating over this brew, laboring for a perfection driven by duty and love. She remembered the slight smile on Kennedy’s face as he sipped the first teaspoon of the chopped scallions and starchy broth. She remembered Ava at three, and she remembered her promise. That promise was what made her keep cutting through the potato flesh, because with each cut, she was wounding her own faithful heart.