Huckleberry Hill by Jennifer Beckstrand

with her tongue, and swallowed it. She might as well have poured scalding hot water down her throat.
    Without a word, Moses reached over and poured her some milk as she began to cough violently. Grabbing her glass as if it held the answers to all her deepest questions, she took a gulp and let the milk sit on her tongue. The inside of her mouth cooled slightly, but her lips still felt like they were on fire—or numb. At the moment, she couldn’t really tell the difference.
    “Are you all right, Lia?” Anna asked.
    Lia nodded and shoved a closed-mouth smile onto her face.
    Lia looked at Moses. His eyes watered, and the color crept up his neck like a strange sunburn. He smiled reassuringly at Lia, then drank half his glass of milk.
    The wrinkles around Anna’s mouth deepened as she took a small bite. “I don’t think I did it right. What do you think, Felty?”
    Showing no signs of distress, Felty popped another meatball into his mouth. It wondered Lia that he could do it without choking. “Delicious. You have outdone yourself.”
    Anna’s lips turned down, and she shook her head. It surprised Lia to see the light fade from her eyes. “It’s too spicy. I ruined it. And I wanted to make such a nice dinner for Moses and Lia.”
    Felty scooped another meatball into his mouth with a generous forkful of noodles. Reaching over, he patted Anna’s hand with his gnarled fingers. “Now, Annie Banannie, no need to fuss. This is delicious.”
    “Jah, Mammi. I love spicy food.”
    Lia marveled that Moses could speak. She felt as if her lips had melted together.
    Felty waved his fork at Moses in agreement. “It’ll grow hair on your chest.”
    “And clear out your sinuses,” Moses added.
    Lia took another gulp of milk. “And the noodles are so buttery,” she said weakly, not wanting to lie but hoping to encourage Anna all the same.
    Anna’s expression relaxed. “They’re a bit fiery for my taste, but I feel better knowing all of you like them.”
    In addition to the tears provoked by the hot sauce, Lia’s eyes stung with tears of distress. She wouldn’t hurt Anna’s feelings for the world, but it would be impossible to eat another bite of those meatballs. Taking a taste of corn, she tried to think of an excuse for not finishing her supper. She’d never been so uncomfortable in her life.
    Anna rose from the table to fetch the butter—she said the noodles needed more—and while her back was turned, Moses reached his fork over to Lia’s plate, skewered two meatballs, and stuffed them into his mouth. While he chewed, Lia was certain she saw smoke coming out of his ears.
    She stared at him, first in sheer disbelief and then in pure gratitude. She shook her head slightly in his direction as if to say, “You don’t need to do that,” but he merely curled his lips, swiped a tear from his face, and turned to Felty. “I saw Delaware yesterday.”
    Felty’s face lit up. “Delaware! That is rare. I only seen one Delaware last year.”
    There were only two and a half meatballs left on Lia’s plate, plus all those noodles slathered in hot sauce. Would she be able to manage another bite? She took a swallow of milk to give her courage and reached out her fork. But Moses gently nudged her hand aside and stole another of her meatballs. With less enthusiasm than the first time, he stuffed it into his mouth, chewed painfully, and chased it down with another half glass of milk.
    By this time, his entire face shone beet red, and sweat dripped from his forehead. Lia imagined that his skin color would match perfectly with his scarf. Her profound relief together with Moses’s unmatched kindness rendered her almost giddy. The pained yet good-natured expression on his face, combined with the discomfort they both felt, struck Lia’s funny bone. A giggle escaped before she could stifle it.
    Moses glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and then coughed and chuckled at the same time.
    Lia put her hand over her mouth, but as was