When people are born with a gift for cooking, that special ability to turn meals into magical experiences, we say they were born with fairy hands. The women in my family all have it. But, when my turn came, I guess the fairy was on vacation at Fernando de Noronha Island, because I got the exact opposite.

I got an impish thumb for disaster.

3

FRIDAY, APRIL 22

Mom cradles my wrist under cold water, but my skin is still turning an angry shade of red where hot oil splashed on me.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” I lie, but Mom still looks shaken.

“What business did you have poking at a frying pan with a metal spoon?” she shouts, reaching to fish a wooden spoon out of a drawer. “That’s what you should have used!”

Our neighbors crane their necks from behind the counter, and I feel like I’m in second grade again, causing trouble in Salt’s kitchen. My face gets hot with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” I say in a low voice.

Mom looks like I just committed a crime. I might as well have. I am the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of famous bakers, and yet I can’t even figure out how to fry an egg without setting it off like a grenade all over the kitchen floor. What a disaster.

She lets out a heavy sigh. “Go upstairs.”

“Let me at least help you clean,” I say, reaching for a mop.

“You’ve done enough already.” She takes the mop from me. “Go.”

I drag my feet toward the stairs, avoiding eye contact with anyone who witnessed Mom scolding me. I’m halfway to my room when I hear honking outside. I turn around, crouching down on the step to see who’s pulling up in front of Salt.

Mom goes to peer into the street from behind our empty window display. Dona Selma joins her and I catch the look they exchange.

Mom’s thin lips have gone pale, her eyes wide and shining like there’s a storm brewing behind them. She looks almost unrecognizable.

I race down the stairs two steps at a time.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

Dona Selma puts a hand on Mom’s shoulder, but that doesn’t stop her from darting outside. And that’s when I see a big white van clumsily maneuvering down our narrow street to try to park in front of Salt.

“You should go to your room, love. Don’t worry,” Dona Selma says to me before heading out after Mom.

Don’t worry? Well, now I am worried.

There’s no way I’m leaving Mom to deal with this alone. I step outside.

An accordion-heavy song, the type that’s popular this time of the year, blasts from the van. The driver, a guy probably in his early twenties, is distracted, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, mumbling along to the lyrics.