Colin looked down at the last fragment of crackling between his fingers, the sliver he’d saved without thinking about it. He turned to Diwa, who was nursing his wrist with a wounded expression, caught his jaw with his free hand, and pressed the piece to his alpha’s lips.
Diwa’s mouth opened. Colin fed it to him, his thumb brushing the swell of Diwa’s lower lip as the crackling disappeared, and he held Maki’s gaze the entire time.
Maki’s smile started slow and finished wide. He stepped forward, wrapped both arms around Colin, and pulled him against his chest in a hug so tight that Colin’s feet nearly left the floor.
“Good,” Maki said, into the top of Colin’s head. “That’s good. You watch out for him.”
Maki released him and seized them both by the shoulders, placing one enormous hand on each of them and steering them through the ballroom. Clusters of cousins parted. A child on a collision course with Maki’s shins changed direction without being told. The crowd thinned as they approached the far end of the room, where a long table sat beneath a canopy of sampaguita garlands and gold bunting, and the gifts behind it were stacked high enough to constitute a structural risk.
Lola Joy sat at the centre of all of it in a red dress so bright it could have stopped traffic on EDSA. She was tiny, barely five feet, her white hair pinned up with a jewelled comb, and she was holding court over three grandchildren and what looked to be a cardinal as though the ballroom were her living room.
She looked up as Maki brought them to the table. She let out a shriek; high, percussive, and so purely delighted that it cut through the band and the general din of a hundred and fifty de la Vegas.
“Diwa! Diwaaaa!”
Diwa dropped to his knees beside her chair, wrapped both arms around her, and drew her carefully against his chest. She disappeared into him. Her small hands gripped the back of his shirt, and Diwa pressed his face into the top of her head and held on.
When he pulled back, he kept her hands in his and kissed her forehead, both cheeks, the bridge of her nose, and her forehead again, each one landing with an audible smack that she received as her due. Her palm came up and cupped his jaw, turning his face side to side exactly the way Mutya had done at the family home, and the likeness of the movement was so precise that Colin understood where every woman in this family had learnt the gesture.
Then Diwa turned and reached for him, one hand extended, his face still soft from his grandmother’s hands.
Colin stepped forward. He took Lola Joy’s right hand in both of his, bent at the waist, and pressed the back of her knuckles to his forehead.
He held it there in the mano po gesture that Diwa had taught him in the bedroom at Greenhills. Her fingers were warm and papery against his skin, and when he straightened, she was looking at him with dark, bright eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
“So,” she said. “You’re the one.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you taking care of my baby boy?”
“Yes,” Colin said. “I’m trying to.”
She held his gaze for longer than was comfortable, and then she grinned, showing off the same dimples that Diwa had. “Good.” She patted his hand before releasing it. “He’s always been the one I worried about, you know. Thebunso. The youngest.” Her eyes moved to Diwa, who was still on his knees beside her chair, and the corners of her mouth softened. “Always the one playing hardest because he likes to win and prove himself.” She reached across and smoothed Diwa’s hair back from his forehead. “My reckless little boy.”
Her hand came up and cracked across Diwa’s cheek.
The sound landed like a starter’s pistol. Diwa’s head snapped sideways. His mouth fell open, one hand rising to his face, and Lola Joy seized the front of his shirt before he could retreat.
“You have to smack him every now and then, ha.” She addressed this advice to Colin, her eyes bright with absolute conviction. “To keep him in line. Let him know that it’s not good to stay away from home for too long and be angry with his mother.”
She smacked him again. Diwa didn’t move, understanding that resistance was not an option.
Colin reached across and rubbed Diwa’s reddening cheek with his thumb. Diwa’s eyes closed under the touch, his jaw turning into Colin’s palm, and Lola Joy let out a laugh so delighted that the cardinal beside her looked up from his wine.
Colin kissed Diwa’s temple, left him at his grandmother’s feet where he belonged, and let himself be pulled away.
Mutya had taken ownership of his elbow. She steered him through the ballroom and into a circle of cousins who closed around him with the inevitability of a tide coming in. Their names arrived in a torrent. Pedro, who was Lakan’s eldest. Peter, who was Tito Bong’s second son and not to be confused with Pedro. Pietro, who was someone’s husband and Italian and apparently the source of ongoing family debate about whetherhe counted as another de la Vega Pedro. Kuya Len, whose handshake nearly dislocated Colin’s shoulder. Baby, who was forty-six. Goldy, who pressed a plate of lumpia into Colin’s hands before he’d finished saying hello. Pinky, who asked him three questions about Stephen in under a minute and then vanished to relay the answers to a cluster of aunties by the dessert table.
Colin ate the lumpia, shook hands, and submitted to being steered from group to group by whichever cousin had most recently claimed his arm. He answered the same questions — where in London did he live, how long had he been with Diwa, how many children did he have — patiently, because every single one of them genuinely wanted to get to know him.
Then a man appeared at his side with a Tom Collins in each hand and a moustache so immaculate that Colin had to step back to properly admire it. It was thick and dark, waxed to two gleaming points that extended a full centimetre past the corners of his mouth. Colin had seen less care go into the restoration of listed buildings. The man beneath it was beaming.
“Tito Bong,” he said, handing Colin a glass. “Diwa’s favourite uncle.”
Colin took the drink, because refusing anything from anyone in this family had long since ceased to be an option.
From across the ballroom, Diwa caught his eye. He was still at Lola Joy’s side with one hand on the back of her chair, his cheek still faintly pink. He raised his eyebrows, asking:you all right?And Colin lifted his glass in reply. A definitive yes.
