The Chili Supper at the Fire Hall

The Cards

I wrote 160 cards by hand.

Each one said the same thing, more or less. Thank you for what you gave us after the fire. We would like to feed you. Chili supper at the volunteer fire hall, second Saturday in March, five o’clock. No money. No gifts. Just come eat.

For the ones I knew, I added a line. For Earl Lacey I wrote, “I have waved at you for ten years and I never knew your name. I am glad I know it now.”

For the two Anonymous givers, I wrote a card and pinned it to the bulletin board at the post office and another at the feed store. Whoever you are, it said, there is a bowl with your name on it.

Josie helped me address them. She has neat handwriting for nine, neater than mine, and she took it very seriously. She would read each name out loud before she wrote it, like she was calling roll.

“Mama,” she said one night, holding up a card. “Is this the bus driver? Mr. Collins? He gave us forty dollars?”

“He did,” I said.

“He always says good morning to me,” Josie said. “Even when I don’t say it back.”

She wrote his name very carefully and then she drew a little heart in the corner, and I had to go stand at the sink for a minute.

Asking Nadine

The last call I made was the hardest one.

I waited until the cards were all in the mail. Then I sat in the car on my lunch break, in the school parking lot, and I called my aunt.

“Nadine,” I said. “I’m having a supper at the fire hall for everybody who gave on the page. Second Saturday in March.”

There was a pause on her end. I could hear the office behind her, phones ringing, somebody laughing.

“Well, that’s sweet of you,” she said. “That’s a lot of work, Missy.”

“You’re the one who set the page up,” I said. “People are going to want to thank you. I’d like you to serve. Stand at the line with me and dish the chili.”

The pause on her end got longer.

I want to be honest about this part, because I knew what I was asking. I did not know exactly how it would go, but I knew that if my aunt stood at the head of that line, she was going to hear 160 people thank her for what their money had bought.

I told myself I was giving her a chance. And I think that was mostly true.

But I would be lying if I said there was nothing else in it. There was a small, hard part of me that wanted her to have to look at them. I have prayed about that part since.

“Of course I’ll serve,” Nadine said finally. “Of course I will, honey. I’ll be there.”