Now that the tension was broken, I felt the need to ask, “Noma… are you… okay?” I’d been so focused on my life’s shortcomings that I forgot to care about hers.
We had already ordered two large pizzas, so she was putting her reading glasses away. “Do I not look okay?” She eyed me, a warning that I had better have the correct answer.
That made me laugh now. “Someone fishing for a compliment?”
A sassy grin greeted me as she closed her purse. “Smart-ass.”
In the shower, my loneliness had been all-consuming. Maybe she felt the same at times?
Thoughts of this woman who lived for me only and had no friends, of any sort, had me swirling my straw in the Coke, lost in thought. “Do, uh, you miss having certain,” cough “uh, special moments,” I rushed, “thataren’tsoeasytocomebywhen,” cough, “when caring for a grandson?” I quickly started sucking on my straw to avoid any more embarrassment.
There was silence, then, “You askin’ if I miss getting laid?”
Coca-Cola shot from my nose and lips. Trying to wipe my mouth, I shrieked, “Noma!”
In a feminine manner, she promptly ran her aging fingers through her graying hair, which she kept dyed. “Sinner, back in the day, your grandma was a?—”
“And I’m the sinner?”
“I never said being a sinner was a bad thing. At least that’s what I told your grandpa when he would?—”
Begging for mercy, I lifted my sticky hands between us. “Not before the pizza.”
Pfft! “After? So you can puke up money just spent?” She handed me a napkin. “No, thank you.” Using a different napkin to wipe the table free of my external explosion, she giggled. “I made your grandpa work for some of this kitten, I promise you that.”
Kitten??? “Oh, gross?—”
“Prrr…”
“Noma, for real. I’m gonna vomit.”
“And Grandpa looooved him some puuuutty cat…”
My face dropped into my palms. Kill me.
The next day, saw me sitting at the pass-through kitchen window, eating a mound of scrambled eggs, thinking about the conversation from last night, about Noma facing danger every day.
My gaze swept over her and the row of cabinets behind her and the stove where she cooked our meals. The kitchen wasn’t large and held only appliances, cabinets, and the little table with two chairs tucked in the corner where we sat together. When she was more focused on pushing food in my direction as I sat on the stool outside the kitchen reach-through window. We never used the formal dining room. Maybe that was only for her and Grandpa.
“Whoooee,” teased Noma from the kitchen in front of me. “It’s smoky in here with the steam coming out of your ears.”
Smirking, I reached for more buttered toast but stopped when noticing my deformity. “How can I protect you with this—” I examined my shame. “This?—”
Noma snatched my hand through the window and pressed it to her chest. “This hand you’re insulting is nothing but proof of you being a fighter. I treasure what you see to be a curse.”
I let my fork fall to the plate of food. “But I can’t even make a strong fist.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Not like a normal teenager.”
She kissed my scar. Then growled, “Who the fuck wants to be normal?”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
Trying to be casual about it, I pulled my hand back. “You’re blinded by your love for me.”
She clucked her tongue with much attitude. “Or gifted with sight by that love.” Then she reached through the window and smacked me upside the head. “Eat.”
