In a house made of cement lives my bica, her feet stuffed into compression socks and wrapped in bandages. Papayas and mangoes and avocados fall from the trees in her backyard, a wild pig sleeps with his head in a bucket. Leaves as big as my torso block the paths that take you deeper into the garden, which I call “The Jungle.” I am too scared to pass the pig in the bucket, of the wild dogs who sleep in the shade, of the brown snakes who dangle from hanging vines. I watch from the window as Bica smacks the bucket with a metal pole, scaring the pig. Ha! To run from my grandmother, whose cheeks are as round and soft as a potu ball, you’d have to be a fool.
“You okay, Schweetie?” Bica looks at me with eyes like chocolate drops melting in the island sun. “Come, come, let’s eat papaya.” She gathers the fruit in her blouse and guides me into the cement house, where it should be safe, but I remember Cousin Dylan, who was visited in his crib by brown snakes and lives, but still fears their bite. I look around and carefully listen, but I only hear faint chatter from the television, another round of Family Feud.
“Grandpa likes papaya.” She still speaks in the present tense, despite the empty hospice bed. “He always says, ‘MMMM! Dee-lishious!’ Just like dat!” Bica chuckles in the same way I imagine manåmko' to chuckle: crinkly eyes, a roll of the shoulders, a quaking belly. But these are inferences. My bihu is dead.
“Aaah,” Bica sighs, and turns from me, eyes clouded now by memory. “Yesh, he loved papaya.” I stare at her face and notice the lines stretched across her cheeks like a map, her hanging jowls, her mouselike ears. I stare and stare because I do not want to forget. We had not hugged in seventeen years, and so much can change in a year, a day, a second alone. And Bica, sweet Bica, is always alone.
I let her dream of Bihu, what I imagine is him in his high-waisted pants and a tight undershirt that shows his muscles. He leans against the kitchen counter, slicing papaya with an army knife and humming Johnny Sablan’s “Nobia Nene.” Bica smiles by the sink, sudsy dishes in her hands. Her hair is dark and full, is piled atop her head, and her chin doesn’t sag like a stara mama. Bihu no longer hums, but begins to serenade: “Hågu nai neni, hågu na pålao'an/hu guiguifi, hå'åni yan puengi/sa' iyo-mu yo', ya iyo-ku hao, nobia neni.” When he finishes slicing the papaya, and when Bica finishes rinsing the dishes, Bihu takes her by the hand, and they sway about the kitchen, and he sings again: “You, baby, you girl/I dream about, day and night/Because I’m yours, and you’re mine/Sweetheart.”
“Ah, where is your dad?” My bihu disappears, and now I see Bica sitting at the table, her hair so thin I can see her scalp. “I hope he didn’t get lost. He hasn’t been here in a while….” Her eyes move from the door to the bowl in her lap, and she decidedly says, “We will save some papaya for him.” We sit together, my bica and I, her slicing the fruit, me watching her fingers. We sit together, my bica and I, until Dad comes home.
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