Chapter Text
Lance rang the doorbell and braced for impact, rubbing his hands together for warmth. He wore his best smile and tried not to think of the sleep he could be getting right now in his warm dorm bed, opting instead to think of his mother and how proud of him she would be.
“Oh mijo that’s wonderful! Helping older people in their communities and taking care of them; tu Abuelita Rosa would be so proud!”
And then she’d squish his cheeks together and say how sweet of a boy he was, etc. etc.
So, here Lance stood on the porch of the home of some random old woman he had never met, and she couldn’t even bother to answer the doorbell in the freezing cold. Lance tried the chime again, hearing it go off through the thin red painted door. He waited another 30 seconds but still heard no movement from inside the house he looked up at the number of the house, then the paperwork in his hand, making sure he had the right address. Yup. did he get the time wrong? He checked his phone. Nope. 8:00 AM, just like the email had said she was expecting him.
He took another look around the porch, trying to see if there was a window he could look into when a startling thought occurred to him.
“Oh my god she’s dead.” Panic welled up in Lance’s chest, “She’s fallen down the stairs and broken all of her bones,” he ran his hands through his hair, “Oh my god. I’m going to have to break into the house to find the body, call the paramedics, and then I’ll be a suspect in her murder and―”
A loud noise followed by indistinct shouting from the street pulled Lance out of his spiraling thoughts. He whirled around towards the sound.
“I’m dreaming. I have got to be dreaming.”
Walking down the street towards him was the smallest and oldest Asian woman he had seen in his life, and she was walking... cats?
Lance stood there for a moment, just staring at this woman, because she was indeed walking four cats, each one with their own color of harness and leash, all of them meowing and bumping into each other as they sniffed at everything.
The old woman yelled at each cat quickly and urgently in what Lance realized―thanks to his middle school anime phase―was Japanese. All at once he thought that this insane old lady must be a neighbor to the woman whose front porch he loitered on. He remembered a few of his classmates saying they had signed up for the same program as him and had been assigned houses on this very same street. It seemed that old people liked to settle near each other so they could all go crazy together.
The panic from before flared up again in Lance as he ran down the porch steps, “Excuse me! Ma’am?” he called out as he approached the woman and her cats, “Do you know who lives at this house?” he pointed back to the bright red door, “It’s a matter of life and death!”
Okay, that probably wasn’t the best way to introduce himself or explain the situation, but Lance was nothing if not a drama queen.
“Oh now what? Has Boy done something reckless?” the woman yelled in response. It took her a second to look up at him because her cats decided all at once to rub against her legs, but once she did she stopped entirely in her tracks. She looked him up, then down, then up again, peering at his face.
After an uncomfortable pause Lance felt he ought to speak, “Ma’am, I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I’m supposed to be meeting the woman who lives in this house today and she hasn’t answered the door. I’m afraid something happened to her.”
The woman didn’t respond immediately and kept staring at him, deep brown eyes seeming to try and find a way into his soul.
“You must be Cuban boy they talk about. Pants McNugget, yes?”
“What?” Lance was speechless and confused.
The old woman nodded to herself. “Yes, you McNugget. All bone and skin, tall and leggy. Follow me.”
The woman tugged on her cats’ harnesses and bushed past Lance before he could compose himself.
“ What? ”
“Follow!” the woman called again, walking up the front porch steps to the house Lance had been loitering by for the last 10 minutes. She then pulled out from her coat pocket a key, unlocked the door, and walked right inside, leaving the door open behind her.
In a daze Lance obeyed the woman’s instruction and walked back up to the house, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him. He looked around at the hallway and first caught the smell of cat and curry, then saw the hardwood floor, the floral wallpaper covering every inch of wall, and lastly, the infinite amount of picture frames hung on the walls. It was like there had been a sale at the local arts and crafts store and someone had decided to purchase every single gold, tacky, and ornate frame and put it on their wall. All shapes and sizes, and none of them filled. None. Every photo had the stereotypical stock photos the companies put in the frames to make you want them.
A round of loud meowing brought Lance back to reality, and he gingerly took off his shoes before walking any further. He then followed the sound of the meowing into the kitchen and came face to face with the old woman again, who was now rummaging through her pantry and cooing at her cats.
“McNugget boy,” she barked when he came in, “No just stare at cats. Food is in drawer. Bowls at back door. Fill and feed cats. They will like you then.”
Quickly Lance scrambled to do what he was told and fed the four cats as they purred and sniffed and rubbed all against him. He noticed that each cat had a different color of collar and that the bowls all matched said colors: Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow. There was a black bowl as well, but as Lance could only see 4 cats, he left that one empty.
Once he’d finished Lance stood and turned to get a look at the woman and her kitchen. Because that’s who this house belonged to. This crazy cat woman was his college assignment.
Lance cleared his throat, “Ma’am, I think I should probably introduce myself. My name is Lance McClain; I was assigned by Garrison University to be your helping hand on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week for the spring semester.”
“Bah!” the woman huffed, not even bothering to turn from the pantry and look at him, “I know this. It why I let you feed my cats. Nobody feed my cats except me. And boy. But nobody else.”
“Ma’am, I’m afraid I’m confused.”
“And no more of this ma’am business!” she yelled again, “My name is Momo, and that is what you will call me, McNugget!”
“Ma’am―I mean―miss Momo, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here. How do you know who I am?”
It was then that Momo stopped what she was doing and stared at him. Long and hard, like she was trying to dissect him.
“I know who you are because of Garrison. They sent me many faces, and you were best option.” Momo then returned to whatever she was looking for in the pantry and swore loudly. “Now get in here and grab this curry for me. My tall grandson put it where I can’t reach!”
And that was how Lance started his new job. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Lance would take the morning bus to Momo’s neighborhood and prepare himself for an adventure of epic proportions. Momo was an energetic woman who, even at the age of 84, Lance was sure could whip his ass, no matter how much she fed him.
Each morning began the same: he’d ring the doorbell, the cat with the blue collar would walk through the cat door and meow until he picked her up, and Momo would answer the door.
“Are you hungry, McNugget?”
“No, Momo.”
“You’re skinnier than before. I fix you meat.”
And she would. And Lance would eat enough to get him through the rest of the day, but not near enough to satisfy the old woman.
After he’d eaten Lance would then feed the four cats that were always milling about the house. He soon learned that their names all corresponded with the color of their collars, and in turn their food bowls. How the cats were able to tell which color was theirs and only theirs, Lance never figured out. He just knew they all knew exactly where to go and knew not to touch the bowls that weren’t theirs.
Like their names, each cat’s personality was unique and different. The one with the blue collar, Ao, was the most extroverted cat Lance had ever met; she was constantly beside him when he was in the house, trailing behind him and meowing when she wanted attention. The cats with the yellow and green collars, Ki and Midori, were nearly inseparable. They were almost always together, running around the house and causing things to crash to the floor at the most inopportune times. The cat Lance saw the least of, though, was the cat with the red collar. His name was Akairo. He was always aloof, watching Lance and Ao from afar as they walked through the house, and every time Lance tried to reach out towards the cat his ears would lay flat and defensive. Needless to say, Lance didn’t try to pet him very much.
Another thing about Momo and her cats was the mystery behind the fifth food bowl that he was never instructed to fill, but was always sitting out. Sometime Lance would catch Akairo sitting near the bowl and staring out into space, thinking of whatever cats thought about. Lance thought of asking Momo about this, but there would be times he’d see her watching Akairo with a complicated look on her face and thought better of it.
And so each Tuesday and Thursday went. Sometimes he and Momo would go out grocery shopping, or she’d have Lance pick up something for her from Starbucks, but mostly they’d stay in the small, wallpaper and frame-covered house and watch Antiques Roadshow.
More often than not, there would be an item on the show Momo would have a fit over, saying that it was too recent of a piece to be considered an antique, and what were these bakas thinking?
“Momo, that jewelry box is from 1942.” Lance would say, calmly petting Ao asleep on his lap.
“And the point?”
“1942 was over 70 years ago, Momo. It’s an old piece.”
And Momo would pause for a moment, thinking, before relaxing back into her reclining chair with a huff, muttering something in Japanese.
But most of the time, they’d tell each other stories. Usually Momo told stories of her childhood or her life back in Japan, and sometimes she’d ask Lance about his life and family. It didn’t take much prompting from either of them to get the stories flowing, as Momo had the decades of life to recount, and Lance had the enormity of his family to draw from. He told more stories of his cousins, siblings, and parents than he even realized he knew.
“Now, tell me,” Momo said around the 3rd week he had been coming over, “Do you have a person?”
Lance, who had been distracted petting Ao and thinking about his upcoming English assignment and not paying attention sat up, “What?”
“Do you have a person?” she repeated, “You know, someone who hold and care for you and make babies with!”
Lance felt himself blush a little at that last phrase, “No. I don’t have a person right now.”
Momo exclaimed something and threw her hands in the air, “No person? How is that possible? When I twenty, I already give birth to two children!”
Lance leaned across the couch towards her recliner where she sat, “You were how old? ”
“Twenty.” she said matter-of-factly, “I met Ri at age 7. We married at 18. Then two children: pop! ” she looked hard at Lance, “Surely you are not so ugly no girls like you! You tall and tan! A little skinny, maybe.”
“Momo, really, I don’t need to be having babies anytime soon!” Lance waved his hands frantically, “And I’ll have you know that in high school I had girls and guys falling for me left and right!”
This was only half true. Boys and girls did fall because of Lance, but not because he was a suave romantic. Most of the time it was because his legs or arms were sticking so far out under the desks or on the bus that people tripped over him, but Momo didn’t need to know that.
“Girls and boys?” Momo’s gaze sharpened, and Lance felt his stomach drop.
‘Oh no,’ he thought, ‘here it comes.’
“Then you must not leave your house!” she chuckled, “For no one to notice you.”
Lance sat in silence for a moment, slightly stunned. He had expected a much different reaction from this woman who still thought 1945 was last year sometimes.
“You should meet my grandsons,” Momo added, almost like an afterthought, “They will be good friends for you.”
“You have grandsons? Why don’t they stay and take care of you?” Lance asked, feeling a bit like he was suffering from conversational whiplash.
Momo barked a single laugh, “Because they’re terrible! Always busy, always reckless.” but there was a soft smile on her face that reminded Lance of his mother when she’d talk about his older siblings, “Besides, I can take care of myself well enough!”
“Do you they live close enough to visit, at least?”
“Sometimes. Boy more than Cheeto.”
Lance blinked, “I’m sorry, who now?”
“Cheeto. It what Boy calls my older grandson when he is mad. I am always mad at him.”
“Why are you always mad at―er―Cheeto?” Lance bit his lip to keep from laughing.
“Because he tries to be father and brother to Boy. You cannot be both.” Momo folded her hands in her lap, “Also he makes me eat salad when he visits. Baka .”
Lance did laugh at that, “You sound like mi abuelita back in Cuba. She hated eating anything someone told hr was the healthier option.”
“Smart lady.”
“Yeah, she really was.”
There was a pause then as Lance remembered all of the times his abuelita would feed the dogs her salads and broccoli under the table and out of his mami’s sight. She would always catch his eye when she did and wink like they were sharing a secret.
“McNugget?”
“Yes, Momo?”
“You no have Gramma anymore?”
“No, Momo. She died a long time ago.”
Lance watched Momo carefully as she looked at him and pursed her lips. After a moment, she nodded like she had decided something.
“Then I shall be your new one.”
Lance was taken aback, “Momo?”
“No,” the old woman shook her head, “You call me Gramma now. You don’t have one, so I be one for you. Every boy needs a Gramma.”
Lance flopped back into the couch, a little taken aback by this sudden turn of events. His abuelita had been one of his favorite people in the world, and when she had gotten sick Lance had been devastated. Of course, there was nothing the doctors could really do, they just told his parents that she was getting old and her body was running its final course. He thought about how nice it would be to have a grandmother again. Albeit a short, foul-tempered, Japanese grandmother, but a grandmother nonetheless. And he realized that even though Mom had her cats and the ladies on the block with her, she was alone a lot of the time. So maybe having another “grandson” would be a good thing for her to not be so alone.
“Okay,” Lance finally said with a smile, “I’ll call you Gramma from now on, with one condition.” he held up a finger and pointed it at Momo, “My name is not McNugget. It’s Lance. Or Lancey Lance, if you must have a nickname for me. You stop saying McNugget, you can be my Gramma.” he leaned back into the couch cushions and turned back to the TV.
He could hear the smile in her voice, “Okay, Lancey Lance.”