On the Friday before Easter Carolina wrapped the egg in her coat and set it in her backpack. It’s perfect, she thought. They’re going to love it.
She slowly lifted her pack, slipped her arms into the straps, looked both ways an…ran for home as fast as she could, wobbling and bobbling and weaving through kids and bikes and trees and adults.
She burst into the house. “Mama, Mama wait until you–”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mama said. She unpinned Jovani’s diaper and plugged her nose. “Come back in a couple minutes.”
Carolina scrunched her face. She ran next door. “Abuela, look at–”
“Oh, mija,” Abuela mumbled with pins between her lips. “This dress–” A pin dropped into her lap. “Un momento, mija.”
Carolina sighed. She sprinted across the street. “Tia, Tia, I need to show you–”
“Look at this mess.” Tia pointed at the primos and havoc they’d wreaked. “Come back when they are in bed.”
Carolina frowned. She trudged across the street and tossed her backpack under the tree. She plopped to the ground. She waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally, Mama and Abuela and Tia found her.
“We are ready now, mija,” Abuela said. “Show us.”
Carolina scrambled to her feet. She opened her pack. She reached in. And pulled out…
A shattered hardboiled egg.
“I broke it,” Carolina cried. “It was perfect.”
Mama hugged Carolina. Abuela touched Carolina’s shoulder. Tia looked at the egg and raised her eyebrows. “Do you remember?” she said to Mama. “When we were little?”
Mama straightened up. “Easter morning…”
Abuela nodded. “Come, mijas. We have work to do.”
In Abuela’s kitchen Carolina and Abuela cut up colorful paper. Mama poked holes in both ends of the eggs. Tia blew into one side. The egg oozed out the other end. Carolina and Abuela rinsed and dried the shells. Mama, Tia and Carolina decorated the empty shells. Abuela filled them with confetti.
After church on Easter Sunday, all the family gathered in Abuela’s yard. After the meal, when her belly was full, Carolina climbed into Abuela’s lap. She leaned close to Abuela’s ear. “Are they just for looking?”
Abuela smiled. She looked at Carolina with sideways eyes. She handed an egg to Mama while whispering to Carolina. “Do you know, mija, some things are made to be broken?” She handed another egg to Tia.
Mama lifted her egg high into the air.
Tia lifted her egg higher still.
Carolina’s eyes got big. “Mama, what are you–” Mama and Tia crushed the eggs on each other’s heads. Carolina gasped. Papa laughed. The primos cheered.
Carolina inched her hand toward the other eggs.
Abuela nodded.
Carolina picked up eggs and broke them on the heads of Jovani and the primos. Mama and Papa and Tia and Tio grabbed eggs too. Carolina laughed and ran as she and her family shouted and danced and played with eggs that were meant to be broken.
# # #
In his formative years Paul Rondema lived in China, Nigeria and (talk about culture shock) central Indiana before returning to Portland, Oregon where he lives with his wife and daughter. His stories, poems and essays have appeared in The Promethean, Writers in the Know, Perceptions, The Higgs Weldon and Over Land and Rising. He teaches and coaches at Reynolds Middle School where he promotes a growth mindset in his students and strives to honor the many cultures that make up his community. He can be found on Facebook and at paulrondemachildrensauthor.wordpress.com.
Photo: Markus Spiske
