1FRIDAY, APRIL 22
Trust neither thin-bottomed frying pans nor Molinas, Grandma Julieta Ramires always said.
I watch the growing darkness stretch over my family’s bakery. Our sign, Salt, written in Great-grandma Elisa’s own handwriting, disappears in the twilight, this strange limbo hour before streetlights illuminate the Olinda hills.
I can’t make myself go inside. Not yet. The bakery is quiet, as if lulled by the heavy breeze blowing from the ocean. And so I wait another minute. And another. I wait for the moment Salt will suddenly—I don’t know—yawn.
“Wake up,” I urge it under my breath.
But Salt doesn’t startle awake just because I’m staring. And while Salt fades, the Molinas’ bakery glows in comparison. They call it Sugar, but don’t be fooled by the name. It’s the sort of toxic sweetness you find in certain poisons.
While all the other neighbors have closed their shops in mourning, the Molinas kept Sugar’s doors wide open like an insult. The happy twinkle of the lights on their facade makes my stomach churn.
It’s not like I was expecting Seu Romário Molina, who was Grandma’s lifelong enemy, to send a flower wreath to the cemetery, but how dare they be this showy tonight? I feel like marching across the street to scream at them, but the headlights of Salt’s fusquinha shining down the street stop me. Mom’s getting home, and she must be worried about me. I took off from the cemetery without letting her know.
Mom gets out of the sunshine-yellow car, the same color as Salt’s facade, but instead of taking the side door that leads up to our apartment, she hurries straight for the bakery’s entrance without noticing me.
When Grandma was hospitalized one month ago, Mom had to close doors, so it’s like Salt’s been waiting for Grandma to come back home. But how can we reopen without her? There’s no Salt without Grandma.
Mom hesitates to unlock the door.
The wind picks up, ruffling her hair and bringing down a slanted drizzle. The fluttering flags my neighbors have already fastened to celebrate St. John’s Day in two months, multicolored like a rainbow, snap from strings above our heads.
I didn’t realize I took a tentative step forward until Mom looks at me. And I see the hurt in her eyes.
I open my mouth to speak, but I don’t know what to say.
Without a word, Mom turns the key and steps into Salt, immediately finding her apron just by reaching into the semidarkness hiding the wall pegs. Muscle memory. Only then Mom switches the lights on. And the bakery reveals itself.
I take my first step into Salt, too. My first time in the bakery without Grandma.
And seeing all the things that have already changed without Grandma’s care hurts. Everything seems so dull. The wooden surfaces lack a coating of the lustrous peroba oil Grandma loved to use, which gave the bakery a subtle woodsy smell. The silence, absent of Grandma’s chatter with neighbors, is heavy. Even all the ingredients to Grandma’s magic are gone, the glass jars that should have been filled with various flours—tapioca, wheat, corn, rice—sitting empty. Same as the display below the main counter.
My heart does a painful somersault, but I hold back tears. I don’t want Mom to see.
She goes to stand in front of Great-grandma Elisa’s fubá cake recipe like she’s answering a summons. We keep the sheet of paper with the ingredients and instructions folded and protected behind a glass box on the wall like it’s Salt’s own beating heart.
My legs feel heavier than normal, but I go stand next to Mom.
I don’t know what to say or do to comfort her.
She closes her eyes. Is she praying? So I close mine, too, and in my mind’s eye, I try to revive Salt.
I picture the customers pressing their faces to the display window outside to look at quibes, pastéis, and codfish bolinhos. I listen for our old stereo alternating between static crackling and forró songs swelling with melancholy accordions. I search for the tangy scent of ground beef simmering in a clay pot ready to turn into coxinha filling. And all I find is...nothing. Just this sense of unfamiliarity within my own home that is dizzying, painful, and so, so lonely.
“We’re reopening tonight,” Mom announces. “Your grandmother worked every day, until she couldn’t anymore.”
She’s still facing the recipe.
“I think you should rest,” I say.
I’ve dreamed and dreamed of the day we’d reopen. But Mom hasn’t slept in ages, and the dark circles under her eyes have deepened this past month.
“I looked for you everywhere,” she says, finally addressing my disappearing act earlier. “At the ceremony.”
Her voice is a little hoarse and it holds so much disappointment, guilt shoots through my chest like a knife.
I should apologize, and I want to apologize, but how do I tell her that it hurt more than anything to see Grandma in that coffin? That I hardly recognized the person I loved—love—the most? My brain kept telling me, yes, it’s her. She’s nestled in a bed of sunflowers, so that’s her. These are her favorite flowers, so
that’s her. But my heart kept shouting, That’s not Grandma. That can’t be Grandma. And before I knew it, I’d already left. I just turned around. I crossed the cemetery gates and kept going, hopping on the first bus home.
How do I tell her that?
I can’t.
So there’s just...silence between us.
Mom doesn’t ask again. She turns and heads into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the bakery.
I want to run upstairs and lock myself in my bedroom. I should change into black clothes. I went to the cemetery straight from school and there wasn’t time to change out of my uniform. The red-and-white-striped shirt and sweatpants feel wrong. Too happy.
But, if I’m honest, if I go, I’m not coming back downstairs.
I’ve done enough running away for today.
Instead, I pick up the stools off the counter and put them down on the floor to distract myself. When I’m done preparing Salt for customers, Mom’s cooking in full force.
The first smells of caramelized onions fried with garlic and ground cumin travel to me. They’d have been heavenly any other day. But, tonight, they only bring more heartache.
The bells above Salt’s door jingle, startling me. I turn to see neighbors poking their heads in. Just for a moment, I can imagine that the smell of Grandma’s cooking is what brought them inside. Any minute now, Grandma will come out of the kitchen and greet them, and this whole day—the whole year—would have bee
n just a freaking nightmare.
But the neighbors wear sorrowful faces and offer condolences. As hard as I try, I never know what to say back. I feel pulled in all directions, my nerves stretched thin, until Mom steps out of the kitchen and rescues me.
“Go sit down. Dinner will be ready soon,” she whispers to me. She’s tied her hair into a tight bun—her “ready for work” style.
Mom shakes hands, offers hugs, and says encouraging words. It’s painful to see the way people are mesmerized by her, like they’re searching for Grandma’s eyes when they look at hers, checking to see if they are the same shade of brown.
Grandma’s closest friends are beginning to arrive, too. Dona Clara. Seu Floriano. They burst into tears at the sight of Salt’s open doors, and Mom promptly comforts them.
I worry this is too much for her. But I’m paralyzed. I don’t know how to be there for anyone when I feel adrift myself.
The gathering at Salt becomes a wake, with people sharing stories and happy memories, like when Grandma climbed up a tree to dislodge a kite and got stuck up there herself. Some just listen solemnly, taking slow sips of café com leite, because, sometimes, when it’s too hard to talk, it’s easier to just eat and drink.
After a while, plates of buttered couscous covered in beef jerky, caramelized onions, and fried chunks of squeaky coalho cheese get passed around. Mom brings me a plate, too.
“Eat,” she tells me, before slipping back into the kitchen. But despite the deliciously savory smell, my throat is tied in too many kn
ots to eat.
The bells above our door chime again. I look over my shoulder to see Dona Selma making her way inside. Grandma’s best friend, who is like a grandmother to me and a second mother to Mom. Seeing her now in these black clothes instead of her usual bright, festive colors makes everything seem more...real.
When Dona Selma spots me, I must look as lost as I feel, because she comes straight over, pushing past people trying to speak with her. She pulls me into a tight hug. I’ll never hug Grandma again. The pain is like a shock through my ribs.
“Lari, I need you to remember one thing,” she says in my ear. “You are loved. And you aren’t alone. You aren’t alone. Do you know this?”
Her dark brown eyes scan my face. I try to smile to show her she doesn’t need to worry, even though I know Dona Selma doesn’t expect me to act brave. But then she tears up, and it makes it harder to keep my own from bubbling up.
She gives me another hug. When she steps back, she looks around the room with concerned eyes like she’s searching for someone.
“I think Mom is in the kitchen,” I say, assuming Dona Selma is looking for her.
“I need you and Alice to take better care of yourselves.” Even the way she says Mom’s name reminds me of Grandma. The same accent. Ah-lee-see. “Why is Salt open tonight?”
“Mom wanted to.”
Dona Selma finally spots Mom in the crow
d.
“I’ll go check in on her,” she says, giving my shoulder a comforting squeeze before leaving.
Isabel, who’s Dona Clara’s assistant at the market, approaches me.
“I think there’s something burning,” she says.
Isabel has a habit of letting the cooking oil to deep-fry pastéis burn, so she’s become a bit of a walking smoke detector.
I wrinkle my nose at the faint burnt smell in the air.
Across the room, Mom is still talking with Dona Selma. I should go tell her about the food burning, but I don’t want to interrupt that conversation. I know Mom needs Dona Selma’s words as much as I needed that hug a moment ago.
“Was your mom frying eggs?” Isabel asks, antsy. “You better hurry up.”
“Me?”
I get a jolt of fear. Mom never lets me cook.
“Yes, you. You don’t want the kitchen to burn down, do you?”
I’ve already disappointed Mom at the funeral today, and I can’t just sit around when there’s food burning. But the moment I cross the threshold into the kitchen, my heart beats even faster.
Walking into Salt was hard. But walking into Salt’s kitchen knowing I won’t find Grandma behind the counter is even more painful. The re
d brick walls feel like they’re closing in.
There’s a frying pan on the stove, the contents—scrambled eggs with tomatoes and cilantro?—already sticking to the pan with an angry hiss. Smoke swirls up, leaving the area near the stove hazy.
I try to open the foggy glass window in the back, but it’s stuck. I turn around frantically looking for a spoon to salvage Mom’s cooking, but there are so many types. Wooden, metal, plastic spoons of all sizes. Which one am I supposed to use? I can feel my pulse in my ears.
I grab the nearest one. A metal spoon. And I start scraping at the bottom of the pan as best I can, but I’m not sure I’m doing this right.
The warmth of the stove seeps through my clothes. The smells are all around me like a net—oregano, black pepper, and cheese coming from another frying pan, and the savory smell of sweet potatoes boiling in a pot behind.
This is nerve-racking.
Deliciously nerve-racking.
Usually, my anxiety is fully aware of every way I could mess up Mom’s cooking. But this time, I’m filled with excited butterflies.
The sizzling grows louder. Like a volcanic eruption. The other frying pan is beginning to smoke, too. The hot bubbles in the boiling pot filled with potatoes burst too close to my hand. Dangerous, I know. And yet I let my eyes fall closed, my ears picking up on the full symphony of cooking sounds all around me.
The metal spoon is getting hotter in my hand. Heat travels into my bloodstream. Fast. It feels electrified, like it’s forming a connection, and suddenly—
I’m not so alone anymore.
There’s a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I understand that the women in my life, past and present, are here with me.
Grandma isn’t truly gone. Not while Salt stands.
There’s a sudden pop, and my eyes shoot open.
Sizzling oil splashes at my wrist and stinging pain replaces my musing. I jump back in surprise and accidentally hit the pan’s handle. It all seems to happen in slow motion. I watch as the frying pan with the eggs goes flying off the stove, food splattering everywhere.
Mom’s screech pierces the air.
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