Tikoy

“I’m kurutuy-kutuying,” he says, pushing back from his chair after nearly three hours of work.

It’s 9:30 am and she’s barely awake. Perimenopausal insomnia is its own kind of hell, even for someone who’s always been a night owl. Sleep is elusive and five hours has been her average for weeks.

She sets down her coffee mug and opens the fridge. The only thing remotely easy to prepare is a week-old tikoy she got from a friend during the Lunar New Year. 

“Do you want tikoy?”

“I guess.” Which, she knows, is a yes. After twenty-two years together, they've built their own lexicon. Kurutuy-kutuy is actually a Bikol adjective meaning “faint with hunger,” but in their household it’s a verb. When someone is kurutuy-kutuying and food doesn’t appear within five minutes, all hell breaks loose. He grabs a block of cheese, slices off pieces, and starts munching. (The bread disappeared the night before.) She wrestles with the tikoy.

(Kurutuy-kutuy is really hypoglycemia, a sudden drop in blood sugar. And at middle-age, they both know enough to take it seriously.)

She saw some Instagram reel about fifty-million ways to serve tikoy, none of which she remembers now. So she improvises. She cuts the rock-hard block, drops the pieces into boiling water, and trusts her (Chinese) ancestors to guide her. He eats his cheese while watching one of those YouTube shows he swears he doesn’t really watch.

Five minutes later and the tikoy are sticky-soft. She scoops it out and sets it in front of him. 

“You may need to add some honey to it. Or cheese.” 

“It looks like palitaw.” He tops a slice with cheese. “It’s good. Doesn’t need honey.” He continues not-watching his show as he eats.

She sits across from him, opens the New York Times app, and tries a piece herself. Yup, it’s actually good.

They eat in silence, him not-watching and her quietly reading.

When she’s done, she carries her still unfinished cup of coffee back to the bedroom. He stays at the table, still not-watching his show, finishing the rest of the tikoy.    

/fin