Page 56 of My Dearest Mackenzie

“Ha. Connie walked me through the process. It’s a lot of steps,” I told Mack. I went over to the stovetop where the soup was in a ginormous pot and lifted the lid, the salty aroma filling the air.

“I remember Milly making it. She took such pride in the whole situation. I always chalked it up to her love of home cooking, but there seems to be more to the recipe now.”

“There certainly is.” I ladled the soup into bowls, seeing all the ingredients I’d lovingly added, and couldn’t help the warm feeling spreading in my chest.

Lifting my gaze, I caught Mack’s hair looking perfectly messed, and a boyish grin on his face, contradicted by the small lines at the corner of his eyes. And the feeling inside me spiked.

I hadn’t known how this would go when I vaguely remembered Mack’s birthday. I’d checked Google and sure enough I was right, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it. Then I’d thought about how abandoned he’d felt as a child and I knew I had to do something special. A fancy dinner out didn’t seem like the answer. That was when I’d decided on an ode to home cooking and Milly.

As we carried our dishes back to the bar, I prayed my hunch was right.

Before taking a bite, Mack stopped and looked at me. “This is a pretty good birthday. One Milly would have approved of. Homemade food, a drink at home with someone I care for… Wait, is there cake? Milly had a huge sweet tooth.”

“You’ll have to wait and see,” I teased. Of course there was cake, but in the moment, I wanted to keep this man guessing—it was turning out to be fun.

Mack waggled his eyebrows at me and went to take a spoonful of his soup. I watched him ladle a bite with spinach and a dumpling into his mouth with curiosity.

“Mmmm…tastes like Milly’s.” He glowed like a kid on Christmas morning.

I felt myself grinning while taking a bite myself.

“Tell me what Connie said,” Mack asked with his focus on me.

“She says happy birthday.”

“I thought you didn’t tell anyone?”

“Just Connie. She doesn’t count. I’m sure she knew from Milly. Okay, and my friend, Rachel. I can’t lie, but Rachel also doesn’t count.”

He took another spoonful, this one including a bite of meatball. “Later I want to hear about this Rachel, but first get on with Connie.”

“Bossy?”

“It’s my birthday, I can boss if I want to—”

I cut Mack off. This version of him was too cute and corny, and was giving me heart palpitations over my growing feelings for the man. “Connie said that she and your grandma would play around in the kitchen after school. She laughed when she told me what she referred to as their little secret—Rosie would try things she wasn’t allowed to eat at home. She even ate a ham sandwich one time.”

“What?”

“Yep, a ham sandwich. Connie told me. Anyway, she said they liked to mix and match their recipes and they came up with mishy-mashy soup together. It was basically chicken and dumplings—”

“Matzo balls,” Mack interrupted. “We call them matzo balls.”

“They’re hard to make, I’ll tell you that much. Rachel, who is Jewish, said she hates making them. Hers always come out too hard.”

“I wouldn’t know…never tried making them.”

“Well, they are difficult. You start the soup with a whole chicken, skimming the scum—Connie’s word, not mine—off the top as it boils, before adding a celery stalk, half an onion, and chopped carrots. While that’s going you make meatballs…since it’s a combination matzo ball and wedding soup. You also assemble the matzo ball mixture and refrigerate it for twenty minutes or so before tossing half a bouillon cube into the broth. Then you start rolling and adding the matzo balls and drop in the meatballs after it boils. Finally, it simmers for a long time, lid ajar. Oh! The spinach goes in last. You add that when you turn the heat down. Whew…that’s a lot to explain.”

Mack set his spoon down and kissed my cheek. “Thank you. It all sounds like a foreign language to me, but it’s very good and I’m loving every bite. I can see why Jimmy fell for my grandma.”

“Would have been easier if he fell for Connie,” I said.

“But he didn’t. The heart falls for who the heart wants. There must be some saying like that.”

Much later, after we ate and were hanging out, I told Mack about Rachel and how she’d become like a sister. We talked some more about my parents and their siding with Jeremy, and of course I asked Mack what he used to do on his birthdays.

“I can tell you, but then I might have to kill you…”

---