Both hands. One on each side of my jaw. Her palms are warm and small and she holds my face with the assurance of a woman who has been touching people this way for decades and has no intention of doing it any differently for a stranger in her grandson’s apartment.
“Let me look at you.”
She looks at me. Not quick. Her eyes move across my face with an attention that isn’t evaluating so much as gathering, collecting what she needs before she decides how much of herself to apply. Her gaze catches on mine and holds, and for a second I can feel her seeing all of it. Not just the height and the jaw. The olive skin, the blue eyes, the whole picture of who is standing in her grandson’s kitchen.
“You’re bigger than I thought.” She pats my cheek once, firm. “Isaiah said you were tall but he didn’t mention the rest of it.”
“I get that a lot.”
“I bet you do.” She lets go and picks up her spoon and goes back to the kitchen. “Are you hungry? I’m making too much because Isaiah’s cabinets aren’t stocked for a grown man and I had to stop at Publix on the way, which means I bought enough for a week because that’s what happens when you send me to the store.”
“Nan, I didn’t send you to the store. You showed up.”
“I showed up because your fridge had two Gatorades and a lemon. Sit down, baby.” This last part directed at me. “Both of you. Sit.”
Zay sits at the counter. I sit next to him. From the kitchen, the sound of Nan opening and closing cabinets with the efficiency of a woman who has already memorized the layout.
“The collards are going to take another twenty. I brought corn bread but it needs ten minutes. Teo, you eat corn bread?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me, I’m Nan.”
“Yes, Nan.”
“Better.” A cabinet closes. “Isaiah tells me you play hockey.”
“Left wing.”
“I don’t know what that means but it sounds like the one who gets hit.”
“It’s the one who gets hit.”
“Mm.” I hear her stir. “And the shoulder? He told me about the shoulder.”
“Almost done. One more follow-up and I’m cleared.”
“Good. Bodies need looking after. You’re lucky you got him.” She says it without weight. A fact about her grandson, offered in the same register as the butter commentary. “Hand me that dish. The blue one on the shelf.”
I get up. The blue dish is on the second shelf and I reach for it and my right shoulder lifts without hesitation, the full extension that used to catch and stall, and my hand closes around the rim. I bring it down and hand it to Nan. She takes it and sets a square of corn bread on it and pushes it back toward me.
“You eat that while you wait.”
“The collards aren’t done yet.”
“The corn bread is done. Eat what’s done.” She looks at me with an expression that is not open to discussion.
I eat the corn bread standing at the counter. Warm and dense and good in a way that doesn’t need me to understand where it came from.
“Nan, I need to know how you made this.” She looks at me. Then at Zay. Then back at me.
“You cook?”
“My nonna would disown me if I didn’t.”
“Hmm.” She stirs the collards. Thehmmis not a yes. It is not a no. It is a woman deciding how much of her kitchen she’s willing to share with someone she met four minutes ago. I know thatsound from my nonna. “You come back. I’ll show you. Recipes don’t teach nothing.”
I take that as a yes and eat the rest of the corn bread before she changes her mind.
