Nostalgia by Sara Kempfer
Each step heavier than the last, Cassy trudged from her car to her apartment after a brutal doctor’s appointment. Never a patient person, “progressing quickly” had always been a positive expectation. Not today when the doctor used the words followed by, “I’m sorry, Cassie.” This time, the heavy feeling in her chest was from fear and intense sadness, not her lung disease. “Let’s go ahead and get you started with hospice if you’re willing to use that service. It can be very helpful as things progress.”
“Doesn’t that mean you think I am going to be dead within the next six months?” Cassy looked away from the doctor, not wanting to show her tears.
“There’s no way to plan that exactly, but it’s possible. Hospice can make you more comfortable,” Dr. Abraham said as he patted her arm. “I know you don’t have a lot of support, so please consider it. Just call the front desk and let me know if you want me to write the order.”
“No, go ahead and write it. I’ll figure it out.” Cassy stood up and walked out of the office.
At home, Cassy barely got the door open before her cat, Toby, was weaving between her legs. “Dude you’re going to kill me. The doc says it will be suffocating. Won’t he be surprised when it’s you?” Cassy laughed, wondering how he knew she needed him right that moment. She went to the kitchen and opened a fishy mixture of mash labeled “Whitefish and Tuna.” She wrinkled her nose and set the food down on the floor and watched him inhale half the can.
Cassy had suspected unsettling news from the doctor, so her cupboards were already stocked with comfort foods from her very uncomfortable childhood. She got water boiling and dumped the elbow macaroni into the pot. “Shit!” she bounced back wiping off the hellfire water on her forearm. In a second pot, she more carefully emptied a can of tomato soup—Campbell’s Tomato Soup—it had to be, to be just right…mixed with milk, not water. The way her foster mom, Darcy, had taught her. Eight minutes later she added the noodles to the soup.
Balancing the bowl and spoon, she went to the living room where she’d lit a vanilla candle, a reminder of her first foster home. Sipping the soup, Cassy closed her eyes and smiled, but then tears flowed. The tomato soup tasted a little like the metal can it had been poured from. Perfect. The hot soup warmed her as it went down swallow after swallow. Manufactured warm fuzzies. Hugs and love had warmed her from the outside in when she lived with Darcy. This meal was the first she learned to make, taught to her by Darcy.
“Don’t let the soup burn to the bottom of the pan,” she had warned. “It’ll be hard to clean off the pan, but burned tomato soup is just gross.” Her laugh made Cassy laugh. A lump formed in her throat as she remembered how she had finally felt safe enough to laugh when she was with Darcy.
The vanilla-scented candle smelled just like the perfume Darcy wore. Even the little flame danced happily as it burned the wick. When she smelled vanilla not long after getting removed from Darcy’s, it hit her like a bowling ball against her stomach— completely taking her breath away after being wrenched from Darcy’s home. It had been twenty-five years ago, yet now that memory and this recipe were like a shielding warm hug, that on days like this, she’d purposely create.
By the time she finished her soup, she felt exhausted, but not alone. “Ok Toby, what’s next?” He looked in her empty dish, so she tipped it towards him as he climbed onto her lap. He bent his fuzzy head into the bowl. After a few seconds, he with his lips parted against the horrendous smell. Suddenly he jumped off the couch and ran down the hall. “Yeah, well that’s what I think about your food too!” Cassy called after him, laughing.
Unable to blow hard enough to put the vanilla candle out, she put the glass lid back on top, removing the oxygen and killing the happy flame.
Artist’s Statement
I enjoy writing flash fiction and various forms of poetry that focus on how life’s struggles offer the opportunity to learn and grow, and how there is beauty in the world in the midst of those struggles. Most of my pieces are semiautobiographical in nature. Many of the circumstances I write about reflect on the foster care system and how it leaves an indelible mark on a person who has experienced it. I hope that one day my writing can shed light on the failures of the system, yet, how it’s possible to rise out of it in a beautiful way.
Sara Kempfer is from Wisconsin but is currently residing in Texas with her two very needy cats. She completed her undergraduate program in English Creative Writing in 2003 at North Central University in Minnesota, where she also enjoyed the role of Teaching Assistant for the senior level grammar course. She is currently working on her Master’s degree in the same field at Southern New Hampshire University. She recently published in the 2023 Spring edition of Fine Lines journal.