Ma goes on to rationalize this by saying his uncles trusted Pa since he was the eldest son of the family, and my mind can’t shake the image of my dad at seventeen. How could he have handled a secret like that?
“Did you know that your angkong was a piano player too?” Ma tells me, a smile crossing her face when she reminisces. “He was the one who taught Ton how to play. Ton always used tocall him his best friend whenever he’d tell me stories about his dad.”
Then my whole chest squeezes when I remember why Pa wasn’t scared about breaking the pagpag superstition. How Pa said that he wished his best friend’s spirit would follow him home so he could catch his friend up on all that he had missed.
I never knew that Pa was talking about his dad.
How could his uncles do that to Pa?!
“So they made Pa lie to amah that whole time?” I ask, feeling the heat rising in my neck.
“He wasn’t lying, Nika, he was protecting his mother,” Ma lectures me instead of seeing my side. “Tsai ya kha tsio, huan ho kha tsio. My parents used to tell me that—the less you know, the less you worry. Talking about things like sickness and death? That can do a lot more harm than good.”
There’s a throbbing in my head as I try to process everything Ma’s telling me. “Does protecting your family always mean you have to suffer alone?”
I’m worried I’ve lost Ma to the quiet place again when she doesn’t answer. Her voice comes out soft when she says, “I guess, sometimes.”
“It sounds so lonely.” The words fly out of my mouth before I can think twice.
The way Ma looks at me then makes my throat sting. While Pa can smile with his eyes, I always see Ma’s heart breaking in hers. Her eyes are so sad when she turns the question back on me. “Do you feel lonely, sweetheart?”
My mouth opens with the reflex to downplay things again, push back the building geyser in my throat, insist that I’m fine and have always been fine! But the moment I try speaking, the whole dam breaks apart—all the tears flood through and I can’t catch up.
“I’m here, Niks. I’m here,” Ma coos while trying to catch my sobs. I feel her hold me closer and I start bawling into her arms.
“I could hear you before when you would cry at night about Pa.” I wipe the edges of my eyes. “Then I made it worse when I would sing and hurt you all over again. I keep doing the wrong thing, Ma, and I’m so, so sorry that I always make your life harder.”
Ma rubs my shoulders when they rise and fall from my crying. “Nika.” She cups my face and wipes my cheeks. “You don’t make my life harder. Loving you is the easiest thing in the world.” Her heartbroken eyes are glistening when she asks, “And did you really stop performing because of me?”
“I—I saw you crying to Achi before my last show,” I confess. “I didn’t want you to go through that again.”
“But I loved watching you sing.” A small smile crosses her lips when she brushes my hair with her hand. “You’re so talented, just like your father.”
My heart still braces itself whenever Ma mentions Pa.
“When I saw you practicing that day, I got overwhelmed with so many emotions, and… I don’t know how to handle all of that sometimes. It breaks my heart when I see you hurting and I think I push you too hard because I want to help so badly.” Ma then shuts her eyes as if she’s reliving it all. “I worry that I don’t knowhowto help you and Jackie,” she admits, her breath hitching. “Before I go to the office in the morning, I usually walk a couple laps around the bakery contemplating all the things I could’ve done wrong. Did I give you too much space? Did I give Jackie the right advice? Did I tell you the correct thing?”
Based on all the worries Ma lists, she must walk the whole of Metro Manila every morning.
“That’s why you have such nice calves.”
“Diba?” Ma chuckles and stretches her legs. “Worrying is great cardio.”
“But you really don’t have to worry about us, Ma,” I say, brushing off the tear sliding down her cheek.
She pauses and smooths my hair again. “Asking a mom not to worry is like asking her not to breathe,” she says, then sighs.
Hearing that makes me want to swallow all the emotions back down.
“When you say that you get overwhelmed with a lot of feelings…,” I start to say. “That happens to me, too, usually when I get mad about things. I don’t think clearly and I do some really shitty things I don’t mean. I’m sorry I was shitty about you and Dr. Derrick.”
“Nika, don’t call yourself a shit.”
“I’m not,” I argue. “I was using shitty as an adjective.”
Ma looks me in the eye then. “You lost your dad. People deserve forgiveness for the things they do when they’re hurt.”
“… But what if I’m always hurt?”
