“Nika? Jackie?”
Every time Pa sees my sister, I can tell he’s bracing himself, hoping for the chance that Achi sees him too.
Then Achi walks straight past Pa, oblivious to his presence, and opens the door.
I want to ask if he’s okay when Achi says, “Why are you just standing there?”
“I’ll… finish my Japanese noodles first,” I tell Achi, and lift the lunch box for emphasis. “Don’t want to set a bad example for customers and bring in outside food.”
Achi looks at me skeptically before leaving me (and Pa) alone.
I hold my phone to my ear in case Achi watches me. “How did you know this was Ma’s bakery?” I ask Pa.
“Beth has a bakery?”
“Yeah, this is Ma’s store.”
His eyes light up when he scans the place. “Buns by Beth.” Pa’s body levitates even higher when he reads the store sign. He reaches out his hand through the window display.
“Wait,” I say, in case Ma’s bakery has some force field ghost repellent too.
But his arm goes straight through.
“Did the force field disappear because it’s your old warehouse?”
I try explaining how Ma converted the place, but Pa keeps butting in with comments about how there are so many customers, how the space looks so impressive. He doesn’t seem interested in figuring out the mechanics of when he’s tangible or not.
Pa’s hand traces Ma’s name on the sign. “You think I can go in?”
“We can try?”
I step inside and leave the door open for Pa to float through.
Pa braces himself and carefully moves toward the entrance.I keep one eye closed since I hate seeing Pa get rejected by spaces. Then he makes his way in—no falling, no ricocheting. He immediately starts marveling at the pastry displays, the newspaper articles about the store that are framed on the walls, the customers lined up at the register. “Always knew she could dream bigger,” he says under his breath.
Through it all, he asks me millions of questions.
“How did your mom start?
“She did this all on her own?
“What’s her bestseller? It’s her siopao, ‘no?”
I try answering while inserting some bragging on the side. “The bakery is always featured in lists of pastry shops you need to try in Manila,” I tell him. “Her siopaos would be sold in every supermarket if Ma didn’t keep turning them down.”
He keeps asking me questions when I realize something. Pa didn’t know that Ma has a bakery.
“How did you get here?” I ask him.
Pa stretches and wiggles his arms. “I floated,” he jokes.
“You didn’t know this store was Ma’s,” I say. “And I never told you the address or wrote it down anywhere in my room…”
“Superstar, I was married to your mother. That bond doesn’t go away,” he explains. “Even in the afterlife, I can sense her presence anywhere—”
Pa suddenly stops talking when Dr. Derrick steps out of the kitchen carrying an armload of coffee mugs. “Annika!” He startles and my heart lurches when a mug falls to the floor. I kneel down to clean up the shards when he waves me away. “Ah, let me take care of it. The full moon makes us all a little clumsy.”
Once Dr. Derrick goes to the back to throw out the shattered mug, Pa says, “He’s really into the moon, ‘no?”
