Krabby Patty Gummies

Agua and Manman have been cooking up a tsunami of food all morning: sòs pwa blan with white rice, chicken, griot, sweet plantains, mac and cheese, and whatever else they’ve decided to make. The aroma creeps to every corner of the house; a siren song that settles in our noses and promises the world to our tongues. Only the inexperienced make the mistake of entering the war zone.

My brother and I know better-- we watch the chaos with our noses pressed against the glass of the French door of the kitchen. Our mother and our nanny move with dizzying speed. The sink is running, now it’s not; the fridge is opened, then closed, then opened, then closed. The oven is beeping loudly, insisting it’s preheated, and the exhaust fan is on full blast. Even so, I can hear some pastor’s sermon blasting from the phone propped against a window.

“Christine!”

I jump to attention when I hear Manman call for me, worried she’s seen me smudging the glass with my nose. Thankfully, she doesn’t look angry. She points to the dining room and snaps her fingers. “Go set the table. Dinner is almost ready.”

I groan— she’s once again refrained from assigning the job to Thomas. The little twerp laughs obnoxiously.

“Sucker,” he teases. Pretending I didn’t hear him, I wait until he looks back to the kitchen to kick the soft spot behind his knee. He buckles with a yelp, and I dart to the safety of the dining room before he can recover.

I detest doing any chores that my mother insists are a woman’s job— Thomas never has to do housework. Worse, setting the table before each meal impossibly sours my mother’s cooking. Agua knows how much I hate it, and she slips out of the kitchen to help me.

“Agua, it’s okay. I can do it.”

She laughs and reaches for the placemats in my hand. Her fingers are like sticks of charcoal, dark and bony, like the rest of her. “Let me help you, petite mwen.”

I leave her to the placemats, turning to gather the utensils from the china cabinet. “Why don’t you let me do it? You’ve been cooking all day with Manman.”

“I help you because I love you.”

“But I can do it.”

“I know you can. But why shouldn’t I help you? I am the granmoun and you are the child.”

She circles the table, placing a napkin at each setting before gesturing for me to set out the utensils. I’m only quiet for a few moments.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Not yet, petite mwen, not yet.”

I sigh and finish setting the table. Done with the chore, I walk towards her, and she opens her arms, enveloping me in a familiar hug. Crushed against her gaunt frame, I inhale, drawing comfort from her baby powder-scented chest and the slight smell of pork that clings to her white house dress.

“Christine, I will help you to grow happy and strong and blessed and independent. That’s my job. You can take care of me when you’re older. Ou tande mwen, cherie mwen? You hear me?”

I nod against her chest. She holds me tighter for a second, then pulls away from me to dip a hand into one of the bottomless pockets of her house dress. A Krabby Patty gummy is visible for an instant before she pushes it into my waiting hand and glances around to ensure that no one has spotted us. I pocket the candy, elated that I don’t have to share it with Thomas.

“This is the way life works— the old care for the young until the young can care for the old. Work hard and study hard so that one day you can take care of me.” She leans down, plants a kiss on my head, and sends me back to my room to play until she calls me down to eat.

As I climb the stairs, I vow to build us a mansion to fill to the brim with Krabby Patty gummies and butterfly-patterned house dresses, and fancy house shoes that ease her back pain instead of those cheap lavender mesh slippers with flower-patterned sequins.

...

The funeral home is far too small to fit everyone who came to bid Agua farewell.

My family and I are stuck in the lobby with the others who are just arriving for the wake. Across from us stands a picture of her that I’ve never seen before. She’s young, with hair that hasn’t yet thinned out and eyes that haven’t yet blurred and reddened. She isn’t smiling in the photo, but if she was, I’m sure it’d be a beautiful grin, complete with a full set of teeth and laugh lines that disappear when she stops smiling.

I stare in confusion at the name printed beneath the portrait. Madame Noelle Magloire. I don’t recognize it.

“Manman,” I say, “how could I not have known her real name?”

“She came to us when you and Thomas were very young— Anna hadn’t even been born yet. You couldn’t pronounce Magloire. You started calling her Agua, and everyone followed.”

She squeezes my hand, raises it to her lips, and gives me a kiss. “Don’t worry. She loved the nickname.”

“O Seyè Jezi! Mwen pa kapab!” An older lady I don’t know clutches at her chest and staggers back, sobs racking her body. “Lord Jesus, I can’t!” Mom drops my hand and rushes to catch the woman before she falls, with Papa and Thomas right behind her.

I turn back to the portrait and weave through the sea of mourners to enter the viewing room, where Agua’s casket awaits. I cannot go past the back row of folding chairs.

The Krabby Patty gummy in my pocket was supposed to be a heartfelt gesture, but it feels like a joke now. Lying in a casket some twenty feet away from me is my surrogate grandmother — the woman who fed, protected, and comforted me for a decade.

I place the candy on the folding chair closest to me and make my way out of the funeral home, weaving through the sea of her other children, whom I didn’t even know existed.

...

The first few days after she left were no different from normal. Maybe I felt some mild inconvenience: Agua wasn’t there to make breakfast, and I got stuck with Manman’s unsweetened oatmeal.

I learned to drizzle honey into the bowl while her back was turned.

Agua and I spoke on the phone every few days, and sometimes she even came by to drop off some candy for us. There were no tears or screams of anguish.

Missing someone sneaks up on you. It creeps around your days like the moss that crawls along the side of our garage. Weeks went by and my body longed for her before my mind did. My heart felt too light — I’d gone too long without a bone-crushing hug.

Children are selfish— each little moment is a giant episode of their lives, and the supporting cast inevitably gets swept to the back of their minds. And then, when I got old enough to discern what was missing, life sprinted along, refusing me the chance to get my bearings.

Madame Magloire did not have any sons or daughters, but she has children all over New York. Despite every child she raised, she died in a tiny apartment in Queens, probably dreaming about the sea of mansions she was promised by every young life she touched.