Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

T here was one more person I needed to talk to and I got to work that weekend.

Liana set up dinner plans for herself and Tita Cris last minute so I could talk to my dad alone on Saturday. Dad had a thing at work but he readily agreed to take me to dinner that night.

I chose a nearby branch of this Chinoy restaurant we liked. As it was a Saturday, it took a while before we got seats but I wasted no time ordering when we got to our seats so I could get on it.

“Gutom, ‘nak?” Dad said carefully. “You ordered…a lot?”

“Yes. I mean, we order the same set every time. I know it by heart now. We can take some left overs for Liana and Cris,” I said, a little nervous. “Anyway. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

The waiter arrived with the entree—fried wontons—and my dad seemed glad at the distraction.

“Has Cholo given you the plane ticket?” Dad asked now, clearing his throat. “I knew you were saving up but I felt bad about not being happy when you told me the suspension was turned around.”

“Yes, he has. Thank you, Dad,” I said. “But that’s not what this is about. I apologized to Liana last night.”

Dad blinked at me, momentarily forgetting his dimsum.

“You see, all these years, I’ve been so angry, and Liana has been bearing the brunt of that anger,” I began, a lump forming in my throat. All traces of the jokes we just exchanged vanished, replaced by a tension that was felt despite the noise in the restaurant.

“But all that time… I wasn’t mad at her. I was mad at you.”

I looked down, sighing.

“Your tita wanted to reach out to you but it was me who took my sweet time to have that conversation. I’m sorry.”

“I know, Dad. Though it doesn’t warrant the hostility and all that crap I put all of you through.”

“You were a child. You didn’t know any better. It was me who should have known better,” he said, leaning on the table. “I should have talked to you about your mom’s passing but I let my indecision take over. I kept putting it off, thinking maybe you just needed space. But here we were more than a decade later, me giving myself the same excuses at the expense of all of you.”

I tried to bite down hard on what I wanted to say but I felt I owed it to my inner child to say it anyway.

“You didn’t seem so indecisive when you decided to get married again, yeah?” I said, trying to smile to lighten the moment, to show him that I hadn’t meant it to sting, but from the look on his face, I might as well have slapped him. The rest of the food arrived, and it bought me time to organize my thoughts.

“For the record, I didn’t want you to grieve forever, Dad. But I wish it wasn’t so sudden. I wish you tried and didn’t sweep it all under the rug. I know, I was six, I wouldn’t have understood had you tried to tell me then about why Tita Cris and Liana would be moving in a year after mom passed. But what about five years after that? Or when I turned eighteen? You had plenty of chances.”

“I know. But you were so angry.”

“You mean I was furious ,” I corrected. “I came home one day and I suddenly had to share my toys. I watched you laugh with Tita Cris and go around the house like nothing happened. I felt so alone, Dad. I kept thinking, was I the only one grieving? Was I the only one who knew Mom? Was I the only person who remembered her anymore?”

“No, anak.”

“You know, I kept wondering, how come it was so easy for you? How come you were going around like you just bought a new car to replace an old one? How come you could talk to Liana about our bullies and her grades when you couldn’t even ask me about my day, when I was sure you knew that my world was falling apart?”

I looked away and decided to distract myself by the hot stone pot containing my braised beef soup. Taking the soy sauce and chili mixture, I poured the whole saucer in and stirred the toppings with it.

“You wouldn’t even talk to me, anak. It was hard for me, too. I didn’t know how to approach you because every time I did, or your Tita Cris did, you threw a fit. On your seventh birthday, we tried so hard to get to you but you were so mad at us that in your haste to get away you ran, fell, and hit your head on concrete,” he explained. “No fault of yours, you were a child and you didn’t know how to deal with things yet. I wanted to try again but letting you be was the only way we could keep the peace.”

I looked down, remembering that instance. They had a party for me and I hated it. I did not want to blow my candles and when my dad carried me to my cake to appease the guests, I wriggled off his grasp, ran for my life, and then slipped on a random party favor some other kid left on the floor. I had face-planted on the front yard pavement.

“I thought we’d try to explain when you entered your teens but things became worse. I’d get called to your school around the time of your mother’s death anniversary. You drifted further away from us and I didn’t feel like I knew you anymore. I was afraid if I forced it you’d do something even more dangerous. So I kept my distance and waited for the time you’d be okay.”

I let out a huge sigh.

“So that was the plan? Wait for me to be okay and coexist peacefully with this new setup and completely move on. Maybe. If Vinnie was going to wake up one day and finally stop acting up and just cooperate. Was that the plan?”

My dad paused.

“Clearly, I should have known better. I’m sorry, anak. I should have had a better plan, instead of leaving you to your own devices.”

I blinked my tears back, chastising myself. I’d been so tough holding on to my anger these past few years. Now that I was getting an apology and an explanation, it did not feel right to suddenly get so vulnerable.

“I felt like I didn’t even have you on my side most of the time. Or anyone. Remember when Tita Cris and Yaya had a fight? I begged you not to let Yaya go. She was the only other person who I was able to talk to. And you let her go because she pissed Tita Cris off.”

“I let her go because she was telling you lies.”

“What lies? The part when she said you and Cris were a thing before Mom and you were just picking up where you left off?”

My dad let out a frustrated sigh. “That was a lie.”

“How so?”

“Your Tita Cris and I were never a thing.”

“But you married her!” I said, indignant.

“I did not,” he said.

“What?” It was the only thing I could manage.

“The master’s bedroom. That was renovated. There are two rooms in there now. I can show you when we get home,” he said. I blinked and my tears just fell one after another. “Cris and I never married. It was your mother’s idea to move them in.”

The statement hit me like a speeding train.

“Your mom was dying. She knew she had only months left. Cris and Liana were next door, struggling with finances, because Liana’s dad flew abroad and stopped supporting them,” he continued. “They were about to lose the house and we were about to lose your mom. She asked me to move them in and she asked your Tita Cris to look after you. She didn’t want you to grow up without a mother.”

I bit my lip to keep from letting out a sob and instead cried into my noodle soup pot.

“I couldn’t believe it either. Your Tita and I only talked after the funeral, not realizing your mom had been giving us both instructions. Cris initially refused during that first year but it was either they moved in or became homeless. On the other hand, I didn’t know the first thing about raising a child. It made sense back then.”

I felt sick to my stomach. I stuffed my face with noodles, feeling ashamed of myself and how I had acted the past few years. I felt so guilty knowing what I know now and every single time that I gave my family grief played in high definition inside my head.

The fact that I gave him hell whenever my dad tried to explain it to me made it feel a hundred times worse.

“I’m sorry I didn’t try harder. I’m sorry I didn’t put my foot down and that I wasn’t the parent you needed me to be,” he said. “But your mother was one step ahead and knew better. She didn’t want her child to be motherless nor did she want to let her best friend end up on the streets. We honored her wishes and told everyone we got married to avoid awkward questions.”

“Does Liana know about this?” I asked through my tears.

“No.”

That made it worse. Our parents were wrong for lying, I was wrong for acting out and Liana who did not even get a say in anything and had no idea what went on had to live with it. She sat quietly and took everything I threw in her direction.

“I can’t believe this. I’m so sorry, Dad.”

“No. I should be sorry, anak. I take full responsibility. I’m sorry it came to this. I apologize for letting it get this bad, but I didn’t know how to deal with my own grief either until now. If you want to blame anyone or get mad, blame me. Cris and Liana—they had nothing to do with it. This is all on me.”

I was not a hugger but at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be a child again and jump into my dad’s arms.

“I’m sorry, too,” I finally managed when my little sobs turned into hiccups. “I don’t know what to do to make it right.”

“It’s me who needs to make this right,” he said. “But I will need your help figuring this out so I can do right by all of you this time around.”

When I tucked into my bed later that night after we got home, I let myself cry and be vulnerable as much as I wanted. Then came exhaustion, and with it, the realization that maybe—just maybe—I did not have to be so angry anymore.

Maybe after this, I could hope for better days to come. I could hope that Cholo, like my family, could have the heart to forgive me, too.

Maybe hope did not have to be such a scary thing for much longer.