Mom always said I should try to be warmer, friendlier, more inviting—but in some ways, she was closed off and cold herself. Tita Wendy would rib her about it.You’re so aloof, hard to know,she’d say, swatting at her with a rolled-up newspaper after she tried to introduce Mom to some of her friends and she gave them a chilly reception. The conditions must have aligned just right when Tita Wendy broke through Mom’s defenses, like an eclipse or something—to be repeated only once every few decades.
I glance at Greg again, and with the ocean to my right and the sun in my eyes, flying down the coast, I have the sudden powerful urge to run a hand through the hair on the back of his neck. But it passes quickly, like always.
As we walk up to Tito Rob and Tita Rina’s house, awkward moments from years past play in my head.
We’d come down here once or twice a year when I was growing up, and I was always struck by how close all my other cousins were, more like siblings.
Mom wanted me to get closer to them—but then, from the way she acted, it also seemed like she didn’t want me to gettoo close.The way she made excuses not to come herself. The way she’d constantly tell me to stay out of the sun, and lied about where she was from. The way she panicked when I was in kindergarten and I’d been spending time with another Filipino girl whose family came over more recently, and I’d started sayingpeenkinstead ofpink.
And I know, I can’t blame her for everything. But somewhere along the line, I started to feel like I’m all sharp edges and uncomfortable pauses around my cousins, where they’re warm and natural and fluid. I was clueless about all these things they justknew—card games at Christmas, how to dance, how to score 100 at karaoke. I was clumsy at everything, uncomfortable in my skin.
We go inside, and there’s a cluster of Titos sitting around the TV watching basketball. I recognize a few of them, the rotating cast of older men who are vaguely related to me but aren’t my mom’s actual brothers, and whose names I would probably mix up, if you quizzed me. One time when I was twelve and I brought a Percy Jackson book to read at one of these things, the guy in the center of the couch asked me why I wasn’t reading the Bible instead.
Through the screen door to the backyard, I see Tito Rob—my mom’s actual younger brother—working the grill. We head out into the backyard, and he spots me and throws his arms out wide.
“Ruby!” he says, giving me a stiff bear hug, still holding the tongs he was using in one hand. “It’s been too long. I haven’tseen you since the, since the—” He was probably going to sayfuneral,but somewhere midsentence maybe he regretted bringing it up.
“Yes!” I say, patting him on the back. “It’s been too long.”
“Come on, help yourself, eat.” He gestures with the tongs at the long table crammed full with aluminum casserole dishes. I make myself a plate, loading up on Tita Rina’s famous lumpia. It’s been years since I had these—the timing was always wrong when I came back from the East Coast for a visit. I can’t help but immediately pick one up and take a bite.
The crunchy wrapping, the rich, savory filling—it’s food like a warm embrace.
Mom would get annoyed any time I said something about Tita Rina’s lumpia.Who has the time to make that?she’d say.Of courseshecan, being married to someone who can help.
“You’re a worrier like your mom, ha?” Tito Rob says, catching me frozen in front of the food table mid-bite. He sets down a serving dish of barbecue skewers and points at me. “Ah ah ah! I can see it. You’re worrying right now.”
“You got me!” I say, doing a single finger gun with my free hand.
“You know, Roobs…” Tito Rob snaps the tongs together, fidgeting. “You’re welcome here anytime. Whatever is happening. You’re all alone up there—we worry about you.” He reaches out to squeeze my arm with his non-tong-holding hand.
“Have some more,” he adds, nodding toward the table. “Take some home, too, if you want.”
Maybe I’ve been dense in the past—maybe I’d block out every little thing that showed they love me, selectively focus on the dissonant moments and ways I was coming up short. Maybe everything that’s happened lately has heightened my senses, disoriented me so much I’m paying more attention.
But the mixture of worry and acceptance in his voice, and the gentle way he tells me to eat more—it sounds so much likeWe love you,it’s overwhelming, and tears intrude at the edge of my vision. I really have become such a crybaby these days.
Someone else comes up to talk to Tito Rob, and I excuse myself and hurry through the house, back onto the front steps.
“Ruby. Hey.” Greg comes through the door and sits on the stoop, putting an arm around me and drawing me close, face pressed into his shirt.
“What is it?” he says quietly. “You can tell me.”
“It sounds stupid,” I mumble into his chest.
“Not to me.”
I sit upright and take the tissue he hands me. “I think I’ve always felt like…Mom kind of hates me.” It’s embarrassing how jagged and blunt it sounds, how juvenile. “Like I know she loves me, but—also, she hates me. And I thought that meant they’re going to hate me too. So I avoid them.”
“No way they hate you.” Greg wraps both arms around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. “And I felt like your mom hated me too, honestly. So.”
That makes me laugh, and he laughs too. We’re jostling against each other, chests shaking, his arms still around me.
“It must be hard when it’s like she wants you to be a different person,” he says, voice low. The present tense gives me vertigo.
“But I’m glad you’re this person,” Greg adds, leaning back and brushing some hair out of my face. “I love her, you know?”
The blood rushes to my head, and I scramble to stand.
