When I was a kid, our neighbor, Mrs. Halloran, had a parrot called Captain. It only knew rude words because her late husband taught it. My mum and Mrs. Halloran did not even like each other. They had some old argument from before I was born, and nobody remembers what it was about. But every summer, cucumbers kept coming over the fence. Tomatoes sometimes, but cucumbers mostly. Then my mum got sick. That year, Mrs. Halloran started leaving soup on our step. She never rang the bell. Just soup, every Tuesday. They never talked about it afterward either.