Mofongo

by Cecilia Samartin

  Gloria pursed her lips, annoyed but not surprised. Her younger sister had many talents, but timeliness wasn’t one of them. “The charge nurse said the doctor will be coming to speak with us shortly. Hopefully, Gabi will be here by then.”

  As the adults began to speak in hushed tones, Sebastian stood in the middle of the room, not sure whether to go back to his chair or remain standing where he was. Jennifer stepped in closer to listen to what they said, but Cindy took the opportunity to converse with her little cousin alone.

  “I heard that you found her,” she said, her green eyes glowing with sympathy. “That must’ve been really scary.”

  Sebastian nodded and felt suddenly emotional and unsteady on his feet. A small tremor had taken possession of his chin as well, but the last thing he wanted to do was to break down like a silly baby in front of his beautiful older cousin.

  “What did you do?” she asked, stepping in closer still.

  “I just called the emergency number,” He said, trying to shrug off the bad feelings. He wanted to tell her more, but he didn’t have the words to express it all. He glanced out the window, noticing that it was almost dark outside, and his grandmother’s voice came to him as though in a dream.

  “When I was a young girl in Puerto Rico, we lit candles every night before the sun set. We Jibaros lived high up in the mountains, and on moonless nights it would get so dark that you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face. But you could always hear the little frogs of the island, the coqui. Instead of croaking like most frogs do they hiccup, and they filled the night with such a cheerful sound that it was impossible to be afraid no matter how dark it was. We enjoyed listening to them in the wavering candlelight most of all.”

  Sebastian shook his head, and then he looked back at his cousin to find her staring at him so intensely, it only served to render him all the more speechless.

  At that moment the doctor, a small bearded man in a white lab coat, entered the waiting room and when Cindy saw him, she left Sebastian to join the adults. Sebastian marveled at her courage. Obviously, she wasn’t afraid of the truth, while he could only gaze at the back of her head, mesmerized by the golden trail of highlights that flowed through her hair like a glittering waterfall. He wished that he could dive in and swim off to another world, back to Bungalow Haven or to the old country that his grandmother often told him about.

  “On the island, the weather was mild, and the countryside so vast and lush that we lived outside most of the time, traipsing through the jungle, wading in the streams, and climbing trees until nightfall. There was a trail near our house that led to a high ridge we thought had to be the tallest point not just on the island, but on the entire planet. From there we watched the hawks soaring overhead, and on a clear day, beyond the vast carpet of green below, we saw the sea glistening in the distance. Sometimes we could taste the salt in the air, and at others it was as sweet as caramelized sugar and cream. Not ordinary cream, but the kind of thick luscious cream that is delicious all by itself. As a girl, one of my favorite things to do was to sit on a rock overlooking the valley below with a bowl of fresh cream. It was like sitting on the edge of heaven while eating the clouds from the sky.”

  “And this is where you learned how to cook isn’t it?” Sebastian had asked, picturing the basic kitchen she described to him so many times before. It had an indoor stove with a propane tank, and when this ran out, which it often did, they relied on the large coal grill that could be used inside or out.

  “Yes,” she replied with a nod. “And where I learned that a meal prepared with love not only feeds the body, it nurtures the soul.”

  Sebastian turned to sit down again, but had only taken a couple of steps when he felt his mother’s hand on his shoulder. She was guiding him out of the room and down the hall to the place where his grandmother was. Sebastian explained that he wanted to take the food from the Senior Center to her.

  “Your grandmother isn’t going to care about that now,” she said, pulling him along.

  “But she likes meatloaf,” he insisted. “She’ll be upset if I don’t save it for her.”

  “Hush now Sebastian,” she snapped. “This is no time to be talking about meatloaf.”

  The family was asked to wait in the corridor just outside Lola’s room. In this part of the hospital only two family members were allowed to enter at once. There was some confusion about who should go in first, but it was quickly decided that Gloria and Mando should go. Susan sniffed her annoyance when she realized that she wouldn’t be allowed to accompany her husband.

  Determined to avoid any unnecessary interactions with her extended family, Jennifer drifted down the corridor and sank down against the wall with her phone. Dean announced that he was on his way to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee if anyone cared to join him. Susan and Cindy politely declined. Sebastian would’ve preferred to go with his father, but he chose to stay just in case it was his turn to go see his grandmother next.

  Once Dean had gone, Susan gave Sebastian one of her glossiest smiles. “And how have you been?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he replied tentatively. He considered his Aunt to be very beautiful with her stylish clothes and sleek golden hair cut just above the shoulders. But he felt guilty about having such pleasant thoughts about his aunt when he knew how much his mother disliked her. Perhaps he was missing something, and this possibility always kept him on his guard.

  “Your color looks very good, I must say,” Susan said.

  “Thank you,” he muttered, not quite sure what she meant. As far as he knew, he was the same color he’d always been.

  “Doesn’t he have the most adorable rosy cheeks?” Cindy added, smiling at him as though he were a puppy dog.

  “He certainly does,” Aunt Susan agreed. “He’s as cute as a button.”

  Sebastian stood frozen before them as they gawked. He felt ridiculous and small, and he didn’t consider buttons to be particularly cute. Nevertheless, he was seduced by their kind words and his blush deepened. He had no idea what more to say so he smiled from time to time and kept his eyes glued to the door through which his mother and uncle had disappeared. It was still slightly open and he was tempted to step nearer so that he could take a peek inside, but he was afraid the nurses would get angry with him. They’d been very explicit about allowing only two people in at once.

  At that moment they heard someone running down the hall, and turned to see Gabi rushing toward them in her jogging suit. Even though she was well into her thirties, she seemed more like a kid than an adult, and Sebastian couldn’t help but feel a certain thrill whenever he saw her. “My car wouldn’t start, and I had to call a taxi,” she explained, panting. “How is she?”

  “We don’t know,” Susan replied, and then she pointed down the corridor. “Mando and your sister are in with her now, but only two people can go in at a…”

  Gabi didn’t wait to hear what Susan would say next, she darted for the room, leaving the faint scent of cigarettes in her wake. Sebastian immediately looked around to see if the nurses had noticed that now there were more than two people in the room, but nobody seemed to care.

  Aunt Susan stared after Gabi for a moment or two, and then turned to her daughter. “Let’s go in too,” she said. “I don’t see what difference it makes.”

  “Are you sure it’s okay?” Cindy asked.

  Susan secured her purse strap over her shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Are you coming Sebastian?”

  Sebastian thought about what Ms. Ashworth always said, that breaking the rules could cause harm to yourself and others. What’s more, he had no doubt that his mother would be very upset to see that he’d broken the rules with his Aunt Susan of all people. “I’ll wait here for Dad,” he muttered.

  After they left, he looked around again to see if the nurses had noticed the extreme to which the rule had been violated, but all remained calm. From where he stood, he could just see inside one of the other rooms where two old men were sleeping in bed
s side by side. Pale as their bed sheets and wasted to the bone, they looked like a couple of skeletons. Sebastian couldn’t imagine any medicine powerful enough to cure them, and he had no doubt that the end was near. It wasn’t just their emaciated bodies that told him, but their gaping mouths that were like two black beacons daring him to step in closer and get a better look. Sebastian tried to look away, but that mysterious cusp between life and death held him spellbound.

  “Where did everybody go?” Dean asked, startling Sebastian out of his reverie.

  He pointed to his grandmother’s room. “They’re in there. They broke the rule of two at a time.”

  When Dean heard this he called out to Jennifer who was still at the other end of the corridor on her phone. “Come on, we’re going to see your grandmother,” he said.

  “But what about the rules?” Sebastian asked, his anxiety mounting.

  “It won’t be a problem just this once,” Dean replied.

  When they entered the room, Sebastian was unable to see his grandmother because the family was standing around her bed shoulder to shoulder looking down at her, their eyes veiled by sad resignation.

  “We should’ve moved her out of that place years ago,” Mando said. “She was never the same after Pops died.”

  “I agree, but you know as well as I do that she didn’t want to go,” Gloria returned, somewhat defensively.

  “That’s right,” Gabi said. “And she’s kept her promise. Ma hasn’t cooked or lit any of her candles since the accident.”

  Mando appraised both of his sisters dubiously. “The accident? I think we all know that fire was no…” But when he saw Sebastian he didn’t say anything more.

  Actually, Sebastian knew more about the fire than he did about the feud because his grandmother had told him about it. She said that it happened just a few days after Abuelo Ramiro’s funeral. Lola hadn’t been able to cook for weeks, but decided that she was feeling well enough to make a large pot of beans, and left it simmering on the stove. She went to lie down on the sofa to rest her eyes, and fell asleep. A few hours later she woke up to find herself lying on the ground outside her house with a mask over her face, and surrounded by a full crew of paramedics.

  It was a miracle that Lola was still alive and that her house didn’t burn to the ground. The family tried to persuade her to move to a safer place where she wouldn’t have to worry about cooking and remembering to turn off the stove, but Lola didn’t want to leave Bungalow Haven. She promised that if they agreed to let her stay, she would never cook again or light the candles that she so loved to burn during the twilight and evening hours. Immediately, arrangements were made for the local senior center to deliver her meals, and Abuela Lola kept her promise very well.

  “What’s wrong with Abuela Lola?” Sebastian asked stepping toward her hospital bed. “Why doesn’t she wake up?”

  “Your grandmother had a stroke,” Gloria replied.

  “What’s a stroke?”

  “It’s what happens when a vein inside your body gets weak and starts to bleed. This time the vein was in your grandmother’s brain which is why it’s so difficult for her to wake up.”

  “Can I see her?” Sebastian asked.

  Everyone moved aside, and Sebastian stepped forward. Through the bed railing he saw his grandmother lying flat on her back with her mouth closed. Thank God it was closed, and not gaping open like the beacons of death he’d seen earlier. He stepped in closer still and noticed the slack muscles around her eyes and mouth which made her look very strange. It was her body, her face and her soft white hair, but it wasn’t really her. Not even her wrinkles were the same. In fact, many of them seemed to have faded away.

  Sebastian felt a cold deep shuddering in his gut. He wanted to run away, but his aunt Gabi motioned for him to step in closer. He did as she asked, and was close enough to reach up and touch his grandmother’s hand if he wanted to, but he didn’t for fear that she would feel differently too.

  “You should say something to her,” Aunt Gabi whispered.

  “Oh please,” Gloria retorted. “Ma can’t hear anything right now.”

  “How do you know? I think we should all say something. It certainly won’t hurt.”

  Feeling inspired, Cindy wiped her eyes and crouched down close to the bedside. “Abuela, it’s me, the beautiful one.” She looked up somewhat apologetically. “That’s what she calls me, and I don’t want her to get confused.”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes.

  “Go on honey, tell your grandmother whatever you’d like,” Susan said, placing a reassuring hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

  Cindy continued, “I just want to say that I’m sorry I haven’t visited you very much lately. It’s just that I have so much to do all the time, and school keeps me busy even on the weekends. I’m so sorry…” Cindy backed away and, overwhelmed with emotion, she collapsed into her mother’s waiting arms.

  “That was nice,” Aunt Gabi said with a wan smile. “How about you, Jennifer? Do you want to say something to your grandmother?”

  Jennifer shook her head, and took a step back toward the door. “I’ll pass,” she muttered.

  “How about you Mando?”

  Uncle Mando studied his younger sister with an air of superior bemusement. “Why don’t you say something for me, Gabi? You’re so much better at this sort of thing than I am.”

  Shaking her head, she turned to Sebastian next. “How about you, little man?”

  “Okay, but what if I say the wrong thing?”

  “Just say whatever you feel. There’s no right or wrong when you’re speaking from the heart.”

  Sebastian put his chin on the bed railing, but felt silly and glanced up at his aunt for encouragement. She nodded and smiled, and he leaned in closer still. “It’s me,” he whispered.

  “A bit louder,” Aunt Gabi said. “She won’t hear you if you talk so softly.”

  Sebastian took a deep breath. “It’s me Sebastian. I…I’m sorry I poured water on your face. I know you don’t like it when stuff get’s on your carpet, but I wanted to wake you up.” His chin started to tremble. “Wake up, Abuela. Please wake up,” he said, and he reached in and slipped his trembling hand into hers. Her fingers didn’t respond to his touch, but they felt warm, and he was grateful, very grateful that at least she was still alive. “Don’t die Abuela,” Sebastian whispered. “Please don’t die.”

  He felt his mother’s hands on his shoulders again, this time guiding him out of the room. She always worried that too much emotional upset would put a strain on his heart, and as much as he wanted to be near his grandmother, he was happy to go. He didn’t like being around his family all together like this, and he wished they would all leave so he could be with his grandmother alone.

  Chapter Five

  Sebastian and his mother went to the hospital the following morning after a hasty breakfast of cold cereal and toast. On the way there, Gloria called into the office and rescheduled her Friday appointments. Then she called Sebastian’s school to say that he would be absent because of a family emergency. Sebastian could see by his mother’s expression in the rearview mirror, that she was tired and worried. He was worried too, and to make matters worse he’d had a disturbing dream the night before, the details of which eluded him at the moment. All he could remember was that he was running at break neck speed. Although whenever he dreamt that he was running, he woke up feeling exhilarated and delighted with himself. This time he woke up drenched in cold sweat.

  It wasn’t until they’d been traveling for several minutes, that the chilling details of his dream emerged. He was running through an old whitewashed village down a labyrinth of narrow streets and someone or something was chasing him. Regardless of which way he turned, his path led him toward the ocean, and it wasn’t until he managed to just pull away that he glanced over his shoulder to discover that he wasn’t being chased by a person or a beast, but by an enormous tidal wave several stories high. No matter where he ran, he’d be drowned in the
sea or by a massive wall of water, and he woke up just as the giant wave was curling over his head.

  “I don’t think you bathed last night did you?” his mother asked.

  Sebastian muttered that he hadn’t.

  “Tonight you’ll have an extra long bath,” she said, as though this would somehow make everything right.

  Several nurses nodded to mother and son as they passed their station, and Sebastian was glad that at least this time they weren’t breaking any rules. When they entered his grandmother’s room, he immediately noticed that she was no longer the only patient in there. Another elderly lady was lying in the bed next to hers. She was just as bony as the sick people he’d seen the day before, but the color of her skin was unlike anything he’d seen before - a deathly pallor that wasn’t just white, but strangely iridescent. Her cropped hair was as thick and shiny as black shoe polish which made her look especially bizarre. To make matters worse, she was snoring loudly. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could sleep with such a racket nearby, but Lola was sleeping very well, and as far as Sebastian could tell, she hadn’t moved a muscle all night long.

  Gloria approached her mother’s bedside. Tidy and dignified with her silvery white hair neatly arranged on the pillow, Lola’s face had a peaceful expression, and her mouth, although somewhat sunken without their dentures, remained appropriately closed. Sebastian was grateful she didn’t look or sound anything like the noisy black-haired patient in the next bed. But Gloria didn’t seem at all bothered by the trumpeting snores that assaulted them. She calmly smoothed out Lola’s sheets, and reorganized the few items on her night stand. Then she considered the numbers on the monitors with great interest, seeming to understand their significance.

  “I’m going to find a nurse. I won’t be long,” Gloria said and she left the room. Sebastian pulled the only chair closer to his grandmother, and sat down, trying his best to ignore the unpleasantness in the next bed.

  Then quite suddenly, the black haired old lady coughed, snorted twice and opened her eyes. She immediately turned to look at the little boy sitting in the chair next to her, and with some effort, she raised her head to appraise his grandmother.