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“Kumusta, Emilyn!” Tita Maricel says when I tong two rolls of lumpia. Her mango-colored dress accentuates her curves. “You sung so beautifully!”

“Salamat po, Tita!”

She’s always smiling, her positive energy radiating. I glance at Amado, who laughs at something Aprilette says.

To Tita Maricel, I say, “Kuya Amado is a very talented animator.”

“Diba? His drawings are always so lively!” She beams. “It’s such a joy seeing them!”

“Ohpo, it is.” I snap the tongs around a mass of pancit, carrots and peas sprinkled around the heap. “What did you think about Amado majoring in animation?”

Tita Maricel thinks this over, her smile still engraved. “It would’ve been great if he had majored in something like engineering or psych, but not if it made him miserable.”

I cast a glance at Ava and Gabriel. I swear their eyes are glued to their phones.

“Really?”

“Ohoh. That’s why I didn’t push him to do anything else. He worked harder at Anderson than he ever did in high school. Whenever he told me about his classes, I could feel how happy and excited he was.”

Tito Rommulo explodes into laughter, and Tita Maricel’s smile fades.

“Success is great, yes,” Tita Maricel says. “But if you aren’t happy, life is going to be a real struggle.”

I dwell on this last part. The summers before were the same, all three months spent finishing summer AP homework and volunteering wherever my parents deemed perfect for my college applications. But this summer is different.

“What if the thing that makes you happy disappoints the people you love?” I ask.

Tita Maricel looks at my parents, who are speaking in Tagalog as they spear pieces of adobo. I was hoping she would take what I said as a hypothetical question, but apparently, it was too obvious.

“Your parents could never be disappointed in you.”

“But they aren’t keen on me pursuing photography. They want me to pursue bio.”

“Your mom just cares about you, and so does your dad. Of course they’re going to guide you on the path they think is best, that’s what parents do. They love you, and they want you to be happy. But you get to decide what makes you happy.”

“Maricel!” My mom waves for my Tita to come over.

It’s Tita Maricel’s last sentence that dangles in my mind. “Salamat po, Tita.”

“Of course!” She squeezes my shoulders before heading over to my mom.

I plop down on the space that’s left of the couch. Aprilette is on her phone, zooming in on a yellow eyelet dress.

“I thought you hated spaghetti straps,” I say.

“I do,” Aprilette says. “But I like how the eyelets are designed.”

There’s a glow to her smile, something I’ve never seen whenever she talks about work.

“If Mom and Dad were okay with you pursuing fashion design, would you have done it?” I ask.

Aprilette considers this. “Probably not. I wasn’t good at it, anyway.”

“And you’re good at chem.”

“Exactly.” The glow on her smile now desaturates. “I ace all my chem tests, and even at work everyone tells me I’m a lifesaver. Plus, pharmacy jobs pay well.”

Locking in on the desaturated glow of Aprilette’s smile, I think back to what Tita Maricel said. But if you aren’t happy, life is going to be a real struggle. If Aprilette, Ava, and Gabriel pursued careers they were passionate about, not just careers recommended by our parents, I wonder if they’d talk about them the way Amado and Reyna talk about animation and biochem.