We stood beside the freezer in silence.
Then Vanessa smiled.
“There’s another false bottom.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“My dad built one.”
She laughed softly.
“For the money Greg is putting back into the kids’ college fund.”
“Vanessa, he’s doing well.”
“I know.”
She rested her hand on the freezer lid.
“I trust him more every day.”
Then she looked at me.
“But your mother loved him more than anyone in this world, and she still protected him from himself.”
She closed the lid.
“Love doesn’t mean you stop protecting people.”
I drove back to Pittsburgh that evening with several containers of Vanessa’s soup in a cooler.
When I got home, I opened my freezer.
In the very back was something I had kept for months.
The empty container Mom had made for me.
CHICKEN NOODLE – FOR BETH.
The one that once contained the key.
