“Sometimes I don’t understand half the things you girls talk about.” Martin sighed, resuming the sudoku puzzle he was trying to finish. Mara’s father was a man who ate meals quick and didn’t like dessert, which was why Mara and Mabel were currently sharing a second faux-Twix. He hadn’t been quite present for the girls when they were babies and was only just getting to really know them now as full-grown adults. “It was easier reading laws in law school, and those you can interpret in many ways.”
“Lucky for you, Popsi, it’s vice versa when you and Mom are talking,” Mara teased, making her dad raise a brow at her, as if to say, “Are you serious?” “Remember when she asked you about attending a webminar?”
“Or when you said we had to visit the deadly departed!” Mabel said, sending the sisters into a fit of really stupid giggling, because that wasclassic.“Or, or when he got mad because he said we were half-hazardly parking the car!”
“Who’s cursed?” their mother, Jasmine Barretto, suddenly asked, pulling away from conversation with Tita Claudine to glance at her daughters. Her faux lashes fluttered. In fairness to their mother, the faux lashes really suited her. “My son-in-law?”
“Not David,” Martin said. Not even looking up from his phone. “Mara likes someone and she wants to sue them.”
“Oh, you must really like them,” Jasmine concluded. “You usually get angry at something before you finally decide that you love it.”
Mara’s giggle cut off quick as she gaped at her mother in horror. “Like…?”
“Oh! Like pizza with spicy honey!” Mabel said, which, traitor. Mara didn’t like spicy things, but apparently adding chili flakes to honey was a revelation on pizza. Who knew?
“School,” Martin added. Mara remembered lying on the floor as a seven-year-old and absolutely refusing to put on her uniform to go to “big school.” Several academic awards later…
“Flowers!” their mother added. Ironic considering where they were now, and how far Mara had come. As a child she didn’t like joining her grandmother in the garden, complaining that her hands itched when she touched soil. How wrong she had been about that, right?
“Hoy naman!” Mara said, taking a big part of her Twix. God, that caramel sauce was delicious.
Her family seemed oblivious to her distress, and the fact that her cheeks were still hot after…whatever it was that happened between her and Jay earlier in this very room. “This is not the same thing. Jay, he…”Looked at me like he wanted to kiss me.“…made a meme out of me.”
But she’d already forgiven him for that. She didn’t care about that at all. But she needed to say something that made sense to them, because she couldn’t quite make sense of this.
“Also, didn’t the two of you say to me that you weren’t ready for us to get married?” Mara asked her parents, indicating herself and twenty-five-year-old Mabel, who had a bit of cookie on her bottom lip.
Mara would never be able to really get it out of her head; the rare sentimentality in her dad’s tone, the deep sigh he made as he and his mother sat next to Mara in the pews of the church. Jasmine had been crying, trying to make sure her makeup didn’t run by pressing a point of the handkerchief where her tear ducts were.
“No more,” her father had declared. “No more marrying you guys off. Not for a long while.”
“Yes,” Martin agreed now, several hours later. “I still want grandchildren, though.”
Even Mara had to laugh at that. Yes, her parents were enigmas wrapped in mystery most days, but she loved them so much. Even when she wanted to put a GPS tracker on them at all times.
“Wait, who are we suing again?” Jasmine asked.
“The guy I saw Ate Mara almost ki—”
“I did not almost,” Mara snapped. “There is no almost!”
“Anak.” Her mother sighed, reaching over her father’s body to hold Mara’s hand. While her temperament was closer to her father’s, a lot of people liked to comment on how alike she and her mother looked. Mara never worried about what she would look like when she was older, because she was looking at it now—her mother’s cheeks were still rounded. Softer now, but still. She had her wrinkles, mostly around her eyes and her mouth from smiling. Jasmine even had a few sun spots, which was why Mara had always been religious about sunscreen and moisturizer. A habit she was still trying to instill in her mother.
Point being, whatever happened, however she ended up, Mara knew she was going to be okay. Because her parents always made her feel okay. They worked hard and earned, and they bestowed it upon their children to make and do as they saw fit. Mara, Marina and Mabel all knew that the privilege of generational wealth was given rarely and to few, and they all sought to make something out of what their parents had built.
Yes, they were spoiled, and they were rich by most standards. But Martin and Jasmine taught their daughters that their work was their value, and that the measure of their lives was in how much they helped other people with their work. That was all they wanted for their girls. To live happy lives, in careers that they valued, giving jobs and futures to others.
Except sometimes, they also wanted grandchildren.
“You know when you were growing up, and all the movies said that a princess had to wait for their prince to come?” Jasmine asked her.
“Yes,” said the girl raised on magic and happily ever after. Who still believed in it, to her core, after all this time.
“Well, sometimes, princes aren’t the smartest. So you need to give them a little nudge to let you know that you would like them to pursue you.” That was sweet of her mom to say, but also very not helpful at all. “Do you want cheese hopia? I have some in my purse.”
See, this was the problem with Mara experiencing any sort of emotion in front of her family. Most of the time, whenever she felt something (anger, usually), she needed time to figure out why she was angry or upset. Feel first, analyze later. But it was hard to analyze when she was being relentlessly teased about it. Or when she was already being advised for a feeling she hadn’t fully managed to break down yet.
This was why she kept her feelings close to her chest. Never told anyone about her delusions of David, especially not the people who understood her best. Maybe deep down she knew the answers and just didn’t want to hear them out loud.
