Read Online How to Cook a Moose by Kate Christensen - Free Book Online Page B

supermarkets had donated almost all the ingredients in the kitchen—Hannaford, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods. Much of the produce was organic, and it all looked fresh.
    From twelve to one p.m., I stood by the steam table and served two kinds of soup, both made from scratch (broccoli cheddar and tomato basil), along with the sandwiches I’d made, while Kim, my fellow new volunteer, served the salad she’d made, and Monica started the prep work for that night’s dinner.
    Kim and I talked while we served. I learned that she was a Jersey girl, a former heroin addict and rock guitarist. She’d moved to Portland after rehab to live in a halfway house with several other female recovering addicts and start a new life, far from her old druggie friends and copping places. She seemed raw and vulnerable, not quite sure what to make of this northern seaside town where she found herself alone and sober. She was funny and quick-witted and warm, and I rooted for her to succeed here. I never found out what happened to her; after that shift, she had a job interview. She must have gotten the job, because I never saw her again. She was the first of several recovering addicts I worked with at Florence House. Volunteering was clearly curative for us all. My suspicion that it did us more good than them was confirmed over and over.
    During that first lunch, Monica told us that the other volunteer on that day’s shift, Diane, had just been given the Volunteer of the Year award; it was not hard to guess why she’d been awarded the honor. Diane spent the entire shift washing dishes in the corner. Every time I needed more, there she was, restocking soup bowls and sandwich plates by my elbow. She did this with immense cheer, unobtrusively.
    I stood in my apron and dished up lunch for all the women who came shuffling up to the service window. Some of them didn’t make eye contact. Many of them looked as if they had been through terrible things, formidable struggles. A few of them had black eyes, bruised mouths. Several were obviously strung-out or tweaking. Some limped badly, sat in wheelchairs, used canes. Others hunched in their coats, huddled into themselves, almost catatonic.
    Even so, they knew what they wanted in their lunch, and they were not shy about demanding it. One of them said, “Not that sandwich; give me one that’s not so burned.” (None of the sandwiches, it must be said in my own defense, was burned, but possibly some were a bit more well-done than others.) Several of them asked for seconds, even thirds. They all loved the broccoli cheddar soup.
    At the end of lunch service, Monica went out and made the rounds, sitting at each table, talking and laughing and lending a sympathetic ear. They all clearly loved her.
    The Preble Street shelter system, I learned from Monica, had a strong ethic of service, or “mission,” as they called it, that wasn’t religious or didactic but was humble, without ego or judgment. One of the rules of the place that I agreed to observe when I volunteered was not to reveal identifying details about anyone there. This is not a writer’s favorite promise to make, especially because the singular details and specificity of people are a novelist’s bread and butter. Even so, I could see the usefulness of protecting the anonymity of women ina shelter. But as I stood there dishing up their lunches, I was dying to know all their stories, their histories. I would be lying if I pretended otherwise. But they didn’t owe me that, or anything.

    Every week during the time I volunteered at the soup kitchen, Brendan and I were working (which is to say, writing) ourselves into puddles of melted butter to be able to pay for the renovations on our house. The upstairs two bedrooms and bathroom and the downstairs foyer had been restored to a stripped-down elegance; the old claw-foot tub we’d found in the basement was installed in a corner of our bedroom;