“Uh. We have a half day,” I explain when Auntie Baby’s still waiting for an answer.
“Really? I’m meeting up with Grace and she didn’t mention Kayla had a half day.”
“Oh,Itook a half day.” I hold my stomach for emphasis. “Wasn’t feeling well.”
Like a light switch, Auntie Baby’s face turns from suspicious to worried. “Is your stomach hurting?” She places theback of her hand on my forehead. “Any fever? Body pains? LBM?”
I slowly nod while Auntie Baby tells me she’ll send over lugaw and reminds me to avoid dairy or greasy food.
After she starts sending me different WebMD articles on how to treat an upset stomach, my phone buzzes with multiple messages.
Ma: You have diarrhea? Since when???—Beth
Kayla: Heard about the LBM from my mom! How’re you?
Seph: feel better, ilagan! sending good thoughts to your stomach and toilet!
… How did Auntie Baby manage to spread information that quickly? Forget CNN and social media. I should be tuning in to Auntie Baby’s gossip network for breaking news.
Pa floats closer to me and whispers, “Superstar. You know why my love for you is like LBM?”
Auntie Baby is busy on her phone, unaware of the impending dad joke.
“Because I can’t hold it in,” Pa says, chuckling.
I groan and hold my tongue.
“Uy, admit it. That joke was solid… unlike your diarrhea.”
Pa’s laughing so hard that I can’t resist laughing along too. Auntie Baby then stares at me—as one naturally would if they saw a girl laughing by herself out of nowhere.
“Sorry.” I hold my stomach again and gesture for Pa to keep it together. “Trying to laugh off the pain.”
Auntie Baby then insists on accompanying me to my unit to make sure I’m all right. When I unlock the front door, I’m prepared to use Auntie Baby to buffer Achi’s potential rage about borrowing Martha, but no one’s home.
While Pa hovers closely behind us, Auntie Baby tucks me into bed and places my medicine kit on the table beside me.She takes out the lotion, White Flower oil, baby powder, and starts rubbing the strange mix on my stomach.
“Feels better, right?” she asks. “When I was trying to get pregnant before, your Uncle Francis used to rub this on me, too, for good luck.”
It feels like she’s turning my stomach into papier-mâché.
Auntie Baby washes her hands, then tells me she’ll get the leftover rice from her unit for the lugaw. “I’ll be right back,” she says when I insist that I’ll be okay on my own.
When she leaves, I try wiping the gunk off my stomach, but all the creams mixed together somehow turned into a glue.
“Hey, my stomach is that color too,” Pa says. Under my bedroom light, Pa’s complexion doesn’t appear as… translucent. If not for his feet floating inches above the floor, I think again how he could easily blend in as any other alive human being.
But he’s not.
Then it sinks in how ridiculous it is that I’m spending the little time I have with Pa getting treated for fake diarrhea.
“You must miss a lot of things since you’ve been gone, Pa,” I tell him, and grab my laptop. “Did you want to see a concert? There must be some band playing somewhere or someone doing Mariah Carey covers. Or karaoke? We can do karaoke!”
“Superstar.” Pa then tells me to calm down. “There’s nothing I miss more than you.”
I blink away the lump in my throat and keep going with my research. “You didn’t come back to just stay in my bedroom. We should make it more special.”
“This bedroom is special,” he argues.
