The city is busy, every curb, every street, every store is teeming with life, with stories and voices telling those stories. But she doesn’t understand a thing they’re saying, she doesn’t understand English. All she’s ever known is grassy fields and a crowded farm house and Greece. She’s just a little girl, yet she feels too isolated and lonely and scared for someone so young. She doesn’t know these roads or these people or this life she’s going to live. All of this is foreign to her.

Her brothers came to America before her, so they could find her a husband. They did; his name is Spero Pliotis. They’ve never spoken before this, but they’re happy together and eventually open a restaurant that makes them both even happier. People come and go, faces fade in and out. She’s older now, a grandmother to a beautiful little girl who’s parents can’t always afford to give her even one meal a day. Now, they make enough money to give away food to people who need it, people like the little girl who always comes to get food for her siblings. She doesn’t remember every customer, with so many people coming in for food it’s hard to, but she remembers some.

She remembers the little girl, with dreams almost as big as her eyes, to someday become a famous artist, to have her paintings adorn the walls of an art museum. She gives her soup for her brother and sister, for her, the little girl with tan skin and dark brown eyes who's always just a bit too skinny. Her ribs and collarbones sticking out just a tad too much to be healthy.

The restaurant thrives, and she still gives out food to those who need it, but she always saves something for the little girl who’s struggling in school because the letters move around on the page.  She remembers how it felt to feel so lost, to not understand what everyone else could. She doesn’t know how to help her read and write though. No matter how much she tried she couldn’t think of a way to aid her; she gives her soup.

The little girl isn’t as little anymore, but she still can’t read like all the other kids her age can. Her bones still look too defined and her tan skin is losing its glow. The harder she tries, the more impossible her goal seems. The report cards are hidden in shame and the little girl cries for her dream of being an artist is getting farther and farther away. Soup won’t fix this, she knows that, but she gives her some anyway. Maybe if the little girl finally had a full stomach she would be okay.

Day after day she feeds the little girl who’s not so little anymore, the little girl who’s dad is a veteran and can’t seem to figure out how to live in the real world. Who’s mom can’t work, can’t get enough money to feed all of her children. The little girl’s name is Frances and sadly, she fears, her name will never be on a plaque under a painting in a museum or gallery because she still gets confused whenever she opens a book. Her art is beautiful though; if only the rest of the world could see it.

The little girl is seventeen now, she can finally read and write. It isn’t perfect, not even close, but she can understand most Elementary level books. Her drawings have gotten better; they look so realistic. Still, her dream is so far away. She’s considered literate now and her art is beautiful, yet her grades are low and her limbs so thin she could practically wrap her hands around all of them at the same time. Not to mention that the not-so-little girl can’t even afford food, let alone college. She gives her soup and goes to church and prays that someday she’ll see her name in the news, the little girl finally an artist.

The too thin girl with knobbly knees graduated high school, she did it. Even though her ribs show and her legs are stick thin and her olive skin looks far too pale, she did it. She still gives her soup and listens to the used-to-be little girl talk of her big dreams that didn’t seem quite as far fetched now. Frances tells her how she applied to colleges with art programs, how she doesn’t know if she’ll even get in and if she did, how she’d manage to pay for it, but she’s excited. Smile stretched across her face, the almost-grown-up little girl tells her about applying for scholarships. And when she leaves the restaurant there is soup in her hands.

The once little girl got in, a full scholarship to Mount Mary for an art major. They celebrated and were happy and had soup and it was perfect, but it didn’t last. She wasn’t allowed to go, her father forbidding it, not wanting her to be an artist. He said it was foolish and it hurt the little girl so much. With bird legs and unnaturally pale skin and glossy eyes, she looked so much like she did when she was little. Her dream was within her reach and then suddenly it was ripped from her grasp. When she went home that night, with soup in her hands, she felt that this was the farthest from being an artist she had ever been.

She went to another college, one she didn’t get a scholarship for and wasn’t allowed to study art. Within the first semester she flunked out. Eventually she met a man and she was happy, she had children and a life of her own, but the dream was still in the back of her mind. And Angela grieved for the little girl with big brown eyes and even bigger dreams, for her granddaughter, Frances, whose name was never put under a painting in an art museum. Even when she no longer looked like skin and bones and her skin retained its natural glow, she still saw that little girl who worked so hard to get into college, to be an artist.