Almost as soon as I put the pills in my mouth I start feeling sick to my stomach, even though I’ve already taken the anti-nausea medication. I can’t tell if I feel sick because I really feel sick or just because of everything. They’re bitter, the pills, terribly so, but I force myself to let them disintegrate. They turn to chalky mush against my gums.
Bekah gets there before the pills have melted all the way, and I sort of mumble, “I can’t talk yet but come in.” She’s got a new piercing on her eyebrow, actually pretty demure, and she’s holding two cloth bags, which she takes straight to the kitchen.
“Nice place,” she says, thunking the bags down on the counter. She looks around, running her hand along the cold marble countertop.
Bekah lives in Santa Ana not far from the shelter. I’ve never been to her place, and come to think of it I don’t think she even has a car. She rides her bike to the shelter.
When the pills have dissolved as much as I can stand to let them, I drink a glass of water, swishing the first few sips around my mouth before I swallow, trying to clear away the taste.
Done. It’s done.
“Thanks for coming,” I say. “How did you get here, anyway?”
“I took the bus,” Bekah said. “I had to transfer once and walk a mile or so after I got off the second bus, but it was no big deal. It just took like an hour and a half.”
“I could have picked you up.” Jesus, I am such a dick.
She shrugs. “I don’t mind the bus,” she says. “You’ve just got to plan your day around the schedule.”
She’s unloading the bags onto the counter. There are cans of chicken broth, and Lipton’s noodle-soup mix, and an onion and a bunch of carrots and some celery and a box that says Matzo Ball Mix. “You’ve got eggs and vegetable oil, right?”
I nod.
“Good. I figured you would.”
“Are you going to cook?”
“I’m making you my Nana’s matzo-ball soup.” When everything is unloaded, she goes to the sink and washes her hands. “Do you want to go lie down or something?”
I shake my head.
“Then sit down at the table,” she says. “You’re making me nervous, standing there staring at me.”
“Can I help?”
“Nope.”
So I go to the table and sit down, which actually seems like a really good idea as soon as I’m sitting. I feel sicker and I start to wonder what happens if I throw up. Will I have to go back to the clinic for more pills?
Bekah opens and shuts a bunch of cabinets and gets out a mixing bowl, the vegetable oil, a cutting board, and a chopping knife. Then she gets the eggs from the fridge and a fork from the cutlery drawer. She pulls out the turkey carcass, too, and sets it to the side.
She cracks open two of the eggs into the bowl and pours a long stream of oil in after them without measuring. The sight of the slimy, dripping yolks makes me close my eyes and take deep breaths. They bring to mind the stories I’ve been writing about chickens and eggs and they remind me, too, of my own insides, what is happening right now inside my body.
When I reopen my eyes, Bekah is whipping the eggs and oil together with the fork. Then she opens the matzo-ball box, pulls out a white paper bag, taps it twice against the side of the counter with a practiced air, and rips it open. She pours the matzo mix into the egg and oil mixture and stirs it all together. When she’s done, she takes the bowl over to the fridge and puts it inside.
Then she pulls two pots out from the cabinet under the stove. She fills one with water, covers it, and sets it to boil and then pours some oil into the other one and sets it on low. She rinses the vegetables in the sink and shakes off the excess water, then picks up the knife and begins cutting them up, peeling and chopping the onion first, then the carrots, then the celery, adding each vegetable to the now-hot oil and stirring the whole thing together with a wooden spoon she’s taken from the canister next to the stove.
The kitchen fills with the scent and sound of sautéing vegetables. I sit very still. I watch Bekah cook. When the vegetables have softened, she opens the cans of chicken broth and pours them in. The broth sizzles as it hits the bottom of the pot. Then she pulls the turkey onto her cutting board and takes the knife to it, chopping the meat into bite-sized cubes and adding them to the soup.
“When I was little, Nana would make me matzo-ball soup every time I was sick,” Bekah says. “She’d come over to our house with bags just like these full of all the ingredients, and I could smell the soup all the way from my bed. It always made me feel better, even before I had a single bite.”
The water is boiling. Bekah goes to the fridge and brings out the bowl of matzo-ball mix. She uncovers the pot of water and scoops up a small glob of the thickened mixture from the bowl. She cups it in her hands and rolls it around, forming a ball, before dropping it into the boiling water. She does this again and again, scraping the bowl for the last of the matzo mix. Then she puts the lid on the pot and turns the flame down to low.
“Twenty minutes,” she tells me, and shakes the Lipton noodle soup mix into the other pot with the vegetables, turkey pieces, and chicken broth. “Then I’ll put the matzo balls in with the rest of the soup and we’ll eat.”
As she’s chopped apart the rest of the turkey, Bekah has pulled free the wishbone, and she carries it over to the table where I’m sitting. “Make a wish,” she says, and holds it out to me.
The two limbs of the bone bow out like legs. I take hold of one. Bekah grips the other. I close my eyes. I search for a wish. I pull. The bone is soft, not ready for wishes. It should have spent a few days drying out. It bends as we pull on it, and I think maybe it won’t come apart, but then, with a quiet gasp, it cracks and breaks. I open my eyes. Bekah holds a bone fragment; the rest of the wishbone is in my hand.
“You win.”
I spin the bone. The edge of the broken limb is sharp. It could be the finger bone of a long-dead saint.
My stomach lurches and tightens, a wave of cramps doubling me, and suddenly I need to go to the bathroom very, very badly.
“I’ll be upstairs,” I tell Bekah, dropping the bone onto the table. “Eat anything you want or watch TV or something.”
I don’t mean to be rude but actually making it to the bathroom in time doesn’t feel like a certainty, and I rush up the stairs and down the hall, unbuttoning my pants as I go.
On the toilet I feel my bowels loosen and my thighs are shaking, and I flush the toilet twice before I’m ready to wipe, and when I do wipe there’s red on the toilet paper.
I start the shower and strip out of my clothes, and I stand there under the hot stream of water with my eyes closed for a long, long time.
By the time I get out, the cramping feels like a bad case of the stomach flu. I wrap myself in a towel and sit back down on the toilet. My wet hair drips a semicircle of droplets onto the tile floor around me.
There’s a knock on the door. “Nina? Are you okay? Do you need something?”
“No,” I call out quickly, not wanting Bekah to come in. I didn’t lock the door in my rush.
She’s quiet for a moment, but I can feel her there. Then, “Nina, come on. Let me help.”
I feel tears sting in my eyes, and I don’t know why.