I place my hand over Achi’s mouth, and face Ma’s direction in the driver’s seat. “If we’re telling you our secrets, Ma, you have to confide in us too.”
My words stretch on while Ma starts the car again and makes the turn to our condo’s parking structure. Then she says, “Parents are supposed to protect their kids.”
“But, Ma.” My sister holds on to Ma’s knee. “Who’s the one protecting you?”
Ma doesn’t answer and the car goes quiet when she switches off the ignition. Her hand hovers over the door handle before she steps out.
“The day you two saw me at Dr. Broso was my first appointment,” she says, her voice shaky. “Derrick told me how much grief counseling helped him, and I think… I might need it too.
“Do you girls want to go with me for my next session?”
Ma’s eyes glisten when the two of us agree with no hesitation.
41
It was naive of me to think that Ma let go of all her superstitions. The moment she sets foot inside the condo, it’s like the superstitiousness switches to overdrive.
“Your father is a lost soul,” she keeps repeating to me and Achi. “There are souls who roam around our world and then give up their shot at heaven. We need to help him find his way!”
For this to happen, Ma’s big plan includes baking enough food to feed a small country. She’s been making buns, rolls, pies, cakes—any pastry you can think of, it’s currently being prepped in our kitchen. I don’t know, maybe in Ma’s mind, ghosts find their way more easily when they’re well-fed.
An even more bizarre request she gave me: “Nika, go get a butterfly net!”
I’ve never owned a butterfly net and I have no idea where in the world to find one. When I mentioned that Pa first showed up as a butterfly, Ma said we should cover all the bases in case he comes back as a winged insect.
“Pretty good, right?” I ask my sister.
I used my half-broken badminton racket and tied a plastic bag to the head’s frame. Ta-da! Makeshift butterfly net.
Achi doesn’t give me credit for my resourcefulness. “You and Ma aren’t thinking straight.”
“A butterfly wouldn’t know the difference between the real thing,” I say, swooshing the racket.
She checks if Ma is still occupied with the pie in the oven. “Superstitious beliefs are Ma’s coping mechanism,” Achi stresses when Ma’s out of earshot. “She wants to feel controlover her life, so she believes in things like butterflies and lost souls.”
Normally, I’d be on the same page. I still stand by science despite my spotty chemistry attendance. Yet my same rational brain feels better when I have my hair tie on my wrist. The same rational brain spent the past forty days with Pa’s ghost that was invisible to everybody else. So maybe part of me sees where Ma’s coming from and can understand why a butterfly flying into our home can mean so much more. I guess it can’t hurt to believe in things that are bigger than our world.
That’s the moment I start thinking of all the things that Pa believes in. If anything’s going to draw him back here, it’s not the food or Ma’s buko pie.
I leave my sister with the butterfly net and ransack my bedroom for where he left the cards, photos, letters he stored in his piano bench. Together, I dig up my memories too—all the photo albums, the ticket from our Battle of the Bands performance, a snowflake sticker from the ceiling, Ma’s necklace with the butterfly pendant—maybe gathering all this in one place will be enough.
Nobody notices me once I return.
After placing everything on the table in front of the couch, I call out to Achi, “By the way, I’m telling Pa you didn’t believe in him when he shows up!”
She doesn’t even give me a response.
Not a single word from my sister or my mother.
Actually, there aren’t any of the usual chaotic baking noises coming from the kitchen. No signs of my ma yelling out instructions or my sister bouncing between the hundred dishes being made. I walk in their direction to find Achi and Ma standing still, staring at an upturned soup bowl on the floor.
“What’s that?”
Still, nothing from them. They’re frozen in place, mesmerized by the sight of the soup bowl. MaybeI’mthe one who turned into a ghost.
But when I actually do something and nudge the bowl with the side of my foot, Achi suddenly grabs my ankle. I have to hold on to the edge of the counter so I don’t fall and crack my head.
“Do you want me todie?!”
