A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow - Laura Taylor Namey Page 0,23

caption reads: Saturday has me like…

Saturday has you like what, Andrés?

I can’t hide the thought that dangles like a loose thread from Abuela’s apron: Andrés never goes to the beach alone. Was he with friends, or?

I drop my phone like a hot potato.

¡Basta! Enough. Last week, these useless thoughts won and I ruined my cakes and made myself look like a fool. An amateur. I let him into my pound cake, but I won’t let him ravage my flan. I pull out the phone and press the little camera icon to make Instagram disappear.

I breathe in and out, holding the moment for a beat before it disappears too. Now it’s time to work.

I divide the batter between the two baking dishes already filled with my cooked sugar syrup, then set them inside the sheet pan in my preheated oven. Then the baño maria—the hot water bath. This will make my flan cook evenly and slowly, with no cracking on top. An electric teakettle dings from its hot plate. I pour about an inch of boiling water into the sheet pan and trust the oven to science that feels like magic. The kind of magic I believe in.

* * *

After Spencer’s pasta carbonara with kitchen garden salad and my (perfect, delectable) flan, I’m folding laundry and staring out the window at dusk. Two hours ago, I sent Gordon, the flan delivery boy, over to Orion’s after his sworn oath: Yes, Lila I will mind the glass-domed plate and not drop it.

After an alert sound, the FaceTime window flashes across my laptop screen. My parents are at the kitchen table, huddled in front of Papi’s computer. Off camera, the TV plays the catchy theme song belonging to Family Style. Early afternoon Miami sun lights their backs.

This isn’t our first chat, by far. But our opening words are still tentative. We’re not us… we haven’t been since I lost my world and they flew me across half of it to try to put me back together.

“There’s my beautiful girl,” Papi says. But his hooded brown eyes speak another truth. Will you ever be the same Lila we knew?

“You guys are looking good,” I say. So trite. So shallow. I can smell the kitchen through the screen. Oranges and guava and coffee grounds, but not tamales. Can they hear this through the screen? Can they hear what I’m really crying out? You won’t eat tamales until I return! Pilar and Stefanie and I made them with Abuela on Sundays. Then Pilar and me, and Stef. Now two of those key additions are gone, and Pili won’t make them without me.

Mami asks, “Now that you’re settled, do you have everything you need?” Have you met some new people? Are you finding your way?

I need Stef to come back from Africa and talk to me. I need Andrés to realize he can find himself and still love me. I need… “Send guava paste. They don’t sell it in Winchester and it’s expensive online. And Cuban coffee. There are a billion coffeehouses here, but espresso isn’t the same. And then there’s the whole tea thing.” I think of Orion.

“Give me until Monday to get the guayaba,” Mami says. “Stop and Shop is running a promotion.”

It was like Abuela herself had dropped right into our conversation. She always insisted her savings account was built one frugal principle at a time.

“Next week is fine, Mami.” A small way to honor her spirit.

Papi chats for another moment then blows me a goodbye kiss, off to La Paloma, but Mami remains. “Anything else you need?”

“A plane ticket.”

“Lila.” My mother cries at puppy food commercials and adorable little girls coming from church to buy pastries in floofy dresses. Her hands raise, flapping toward her chest like wings. Face contorted, her eyes well and the real words come now, bold with her own pain, strong with mothering. “Still? You still think we wanted to send you to Catalina? You think we don’t understand how difficult this separation is? We miss you.”

But none of that is enough to put me on an airplane. And I don’t know why, but it just hits me now: three losses, three months. Was this Pili’s idea? Did she plug me into one of her accounting algorithms, reconciling the sister she knows and loves?

“You’ll get your ticket soon. I promise.” Mami sucks in a breath. “But there’s some good, no? Cate told me you’ve discovered the kitchen.”

The word kitchen is the only thing that keeps me from hanging up.