As usual, my joke falls flat with my family.
“Speaking of…” Ma turns to me. “Remind me to give Seph some siopaos for looking after you.”
“Ma, he did not look after me. All he did was walk by my side, which I’m capable of doingalone!” I groan. “Also, between Moseph and me, I’m the one who’s more responsible and mature.”
“Yeah, Ma, Nika is responsible.”
We all stop short when my sister suddenly compliments me out of nowhere. This is even weirder than when Seph was doing it.
“When you say Nika… you’re referring to me, right?”
Achi nods and the smug gleam in her eyes makes me nervous. “Superresponsible. I was really impressed when you volunteered to handle the dish station today.”
I peek at the washing station and it’s overflowing with a tower of pans, trays, bowls. I don’t know how she pulled it off, but every single dish there looks greasier than usual. I’m also 100 percent sure that dish duty is payback for me opening her stupid drawer. Yet, I hold my tongue and save all my comebacks for later. If I make a fuss about this now, Ma might enlist Seph for Nika-walking duty until I’m forty.
Fine, I will swallow my pride. I willcontinueto be the bigger person and wash the dumb dishes.
“Did you see the email with the supermarket’s latest offer?” Achi asks Ma. “They even tagged Buns by Beth in their post about brands to watch.”
Ma’s gaze hardens. “I don’t want them tagging us. If they start posting about us, then people will know where we are.”
“Ma, that’s the whole point of marketing,” my sister says, still trying to reason with her.
Ma drops the subject and hands Achi a puto pao. “How do you like the texture of this? I tried steaming the bun for a bit longer than usual.”
Maybe I was distracted by Dr. Derrick’s presence or Achi’s dishwashing scheme. Or maybe it was hearing Ma talk about Pa’s favorite food. I’m not really sure what compelled me to break the rules.
“Do you remember Pa’s birthday when he got sick from eating too much puto pao?” I ask, smiling at the memory. “Can’t believe he still managed to eat more the next day.”
As soon as I bring it up, I already feel myself holding my breath.
“Ah, Annika.” Ma doesn’t look at me when she answers. “Let’s not talk about those things.”
Achi swiftly swoops in and brings up how sales have increased this week. When Ma excuses herself to check on the register, Achi eyes me with an expression that screams,What the hell was that?
Because of course, I should know better. Ma can talk about Pa when she reminds us to include Pa in our prayers, when it’s about replacing the flowers by his grave, when she tells us not to harm any butterflies because it might be our dead father visiting. But when we think about memories with Pa, the happy stuff, the times when he feltreal—Ma hasn’t been able to handle that.
That’s why Achi tells me to adjust. Keep mentions of Pa to a minimum, shove it all in during the days when Pa is all I can think about. I mean, what right do I have when Achi and Ma are able to keep it together? Achi had Pa until she was eighteen, Ma fell in love and built a family with him. Twelve years is all I had.
What right do I have to grieve when their loss is way bigger than mine?
When Ma returns and Achi does damage control by chatting more about the puto pao texture, I turn on the faucet and start rinsing. I blink away my tears as I turn up the water pressure and soak the pans with surfaces that make the loudest noise.
Pull yourself together. Like what Achi says, if Ma sees that you’re okay, then she’ll be okay.
But, god.
Sometimes, being around my family makes me feel so lonely.
4
By my family’s twisted logic, getting forced into dishwashing duty grants me solo-walking privileges. Ma stays back to close the bakery, Achi is probably stuck in traffic on the way to Marikina, and I have the condo all to myself.
This rare moment of peace means I have a small window for chilimansi pancit canton.
My sister does regular “deep cleans” of our kitchen and that means throwing out any chips, candy, soft drinks—basically, anything with flavor. During Achi’s last birthday, Auntie Baby and Auntie Grace sent over a cake each and Achi immediately gave one away. If my sister wins the lottery, she would be the only person in the world who’d turn down the jackpot and say, “No, thank you. We don’t want to havetoomuch fun.”
I can live without the cake, the chips, the soft drinks, but my sister’s vendetta against instant noodles? It’s downright deprivation.
