Her voice was no louder than usual, Caribbean cadences lifting and rocking the consonants, but each single-syllable word outlined with menace.

I blinked, struck still, and met the gleam of her eye, leveled on me from two feet above. I was a scrawny kid, prescribed iron supplements by the pediatrician.

“The… what? What egg?”

“The egg. What did you do with it. It was right here.”

Lucille was my grandmother’s cook, and I would spend family visits in the kitchen, “helping” the Jamaican woman while the rest sipped cocktails in stockings and suits in the living room.

I’d been fishing a sugar cube out of the Domino box to pop in my mouth when she’d surprised me. My eyes swept her counters. An egg. What the heck was she even doing with an egg? Not baking anything—she’d been cleaning up while a garlicky leg of lamb sizzled in the oven.

And then it hit me. My hiccups were gone. I looked at her with sudden understanding—she’d scared them right out of me. Lucille gave me a wink and her signature grin and returned to wiping those sparkling counters.