Rose stood before the big gas stove, sufficiently sized to accommodate the many mouths it had to feed. She stirred the vegetable soup with a wooden spoon. It had been her idea to create vegetable soup. She included pieces of leftover chicken to make it hearty, and macaroni. The soup smelled delicious with all the spices she’d added.
“Rose, we’re hungry! Snap it up!” called one of the women seated at the long dining room table. All those waiting had returned from work and, no doubt, had worked up appetites.
“Yeah, I’m dishing it up now,” Rose called from the kitchen. “You could come take some bowls in there.”
Marie, a large woman who’d been an addict when on the street, until she entered the program, came into the kitchen. “Give me some bowls.”
“Put them on that tray on the counter,” Ro
