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Drawing Dragons

Soup: Drawing Dragons Day 47

We made soup today.

Big chunks of carrots and potatoes with tiny onions threaded through salty broth.

I peeled the carrots — long, orange strips dropping into the big white bowl in the sink. Slow peels. I cut my finger a couple of years ago, a big red slice that still makes me awkward around the peeler.

Sometimes, I let my son use it. But not today. It’s so hard to forget the possibility of red. The blood on the cutting board. And there’s days when I’d rather protect him, then set him off on the road to culinary freedom.

He has a little red chopper.

He cuts up the carrots, steals a potato, and tries to peel it by slicing off the edges. He barely has any potato left once the brown is all gone.

I stare at the fat peels, remembering potato skins at the Deck Motel and Restaurant. Truck Stop off the interstate. I was eighteen, and working the late shift. I remember picking the platter up from the silver counter, placing them on my tray. The fried brown peels covered in cheese and sour cream and bacon and more cheese. And something green — depending on the day.

“I cut myself, you know.”

He’s holding his hand, staring over at me.

“Come here,” I say.

He comes over, stands by the sink, and we rinse the cut clean. We find the heart-shaped bandage and wrap it tight around his pointer finger.

“How do you think that happened?”

“I don’t know,” he says, pulling the soccer ball from under the table. “Let’s play.”

He won, tiny feet flashing by me. I pulled out the bowls, ladled in the vegetables. Bob dropped ice cubes into his bowl.

The soup was good — salty. The potatoes dissolved in my mouth.

“I have another cut, you know.”

I look over at him. He’s holding his hand toward me again.

“Come here,” I say.

We walk to the bathroom where we rinse the cut.

“You got that one too.” I say.

“I did,” he agrees.

“I’m sorry. That looks like it hurts.”

I placed the potato skins down at a family’s table. The mom helped the boy out of his coat, his fingers reaching. The girl grabbed for a big cheesy peel. Their teeth sunk in. They smiled.

He ate his soup, and now he’s asleep. I glanced at Facebook.

My friend Sam was in lockdown for two hours today while they searched his college campus for an active shooter.

Sam is safe, and his students are safe. No shooter was found.

It’s getting late. The story is almost done.

My sixteen-year old self picked up the empty plate.

My thirty-six year old self rinsed off the cutting board.

And then I drew a dragon.

Dragon head in bron ink