Chapter 15
Pa is hovering by the waiting area of our condominium lobby, as if he’s a visitor who needs to be buzzed in instead of a … ghost.
“Is he here?” Kayla asks while I’m processing that Pa didn’t go away. Her hand quickly goes to the cross on her necklace and she turns on her phone’s flashlight.
I shield my eyes when the light hits my eyes. “What’re you doing?”
“Waving smoke around is supposed to drive off evil spirits.”
Pa stands to the side while Kayla looks like she’s one of those airport marshals guiding a giant plane on the runway. “I didn’t bring incense, but maybe my phone light can work,” she explains.
“Hey!” she says when I swipe the phone and turn off the light.
“My dad isn’t an evil spirit.”
“This is what happens in many horror movies,” Kayla says. “Ghosts appear looking like your friend, your dad, then they turn out to be a headless priest or a vampire-like baby.”
I tell Kayla she’s being ridiculous and leave out the fact that I had the same exact thought yesterday.
“And I would’ve never qualified to be a priest,” Pa says, chiming in.
I spend the next ten minutes assuring Kayla that Pa’s ghost isn’t headless, vampire-like, and doesn’t resemble the White Lady of Balete Drive (even though I have no idea what she’d look like and have no interest in finding out, thank you very much).
Kayla inches closer to me. “So how do I greet him to show I come in peace?”
“Curtsy?” I say with a shrug.
I meant it as a joke, but Kayla goes on to do a full-body curtsy about ten feet from where Pa is actually floating.
I spin Kayla around and direct her to where Pa is located. Kayla does another bow. “Nice to meet you, Ghost Dad.”
Pa smiles. “I can’t believe this is little Kayla Tan. She was just here before,” he says, pointing to his waist.
“She wanted to call you Demonyo Antonio, which I vetoed.” Kayla also suggested Ghost Daddy, which I vetoed harder. “What time did you get back?” I ask Pa.
He glances at the clock atop the elevator. “Around noon?”
“You’ve just been waiting here?”
“I went up to the unit,” he says. “Then your Auntie Baby visited and I thought they wanted privacy since Marie-tres night was always your mom’s girls’ night.”
“What’s he saying?” Kayla whispers.
“Something about a girls’ night…” I pause and realize the date. Tuesdays are always Ma’s mahjong night at Auntie Baby’s.
“What time do our moms finish mahjong?” I check with Kayla.
She shrugs. “I’m always asleep before my mom gets home.” Then it dawns on her. “How are we going to ask Auntie Beth’s advice about the forty days?”
“What forty days?” Pa turns to me.
“We have this theory that your ghost only has forty days to wander the Earth.”
Then Kayla follows up with another question. “What does Ghost Dad think of the theory?”
And Pa asks, “Why are you making up theories about me?”
Okay, just because I can see ghosts doesn’t mean I’ve agreed to be the interpreter. “One question at a time,” I say, urging my best friend and Dad to chill.
The elevator pings at the lobby, and while both sides keep giving me more things to say to the other person, I focus on the situation at hand.
“My mom thinks I brought you to Bible study!” Kayla protests when I push the button for Auntie Baby’s floor and tell her we’re going to crash their mahjong session.
“Well, if Auntie Grace asks, you can say I did read the Bible today,” I say in my defense.
“That’s not how Bible study works!”
While Kayla freaks out about my lack of biblical understanding, Pa is questioning Ma’s superstitions.
“How did you find out about the forty days?”
“Ma told us that your soul would go up to heaven on your fortieth day.” I fix my eyes on the elevator floor when the hot feeling rises in my throat again.
On Pa’s last fortieth day, I remember Ma sobbing so much when all the visitors left.
It was the most I had ever seen my mom cry.
She sat in front of Pa’s picture and murmured how she wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
Stop it! Why are you bringing back those memories when your dad is here?
I shake all those thoughts away and smile at Pa. “I know it’s a reach, but what if the forty days applies to your ghost too?”
The elevator doors open and I lead Kayla and Pa toward Unit 3H.
“Superstar, I don’t think we need to bring your mom into this—”
Pa gets cut off when Seph opens the door.
“Is my mom here?” I ask him.
Instead of answering my question, he leans his arm on the doorframe, blocking the unit’s entrance. “Sorry.” He raises his shoulders and places his hand above my head. “Must be this tall to enter.”
Pa hovers and inspects Seph without him noticing. “Is this Baby’s son?”
Unfortunately.
When I try looking over his right shoulder, he adjusts his stance to the right. I go to the left and he moves to obstruct my view.
My patience runs very thin when he blocks me from the door again. “Where’d you get your reflexes?” he asks, looking like he’s actually enjoying wasting my time.
I’m about to slam my body against him and enter the unit through brute force when Kayla says, “Nika’s going through an emergency.”
That wipes the smile off his face and he looks at me like he’s actually concerned. “Wait. What’s wrong?”
“You,” I say through my teeth. “You’re pissing me off.”
“Niks, I’m not sure this is the best way to ask for his help with Ghost Daddy.”
…
I wasn’t really sure if I’d tell Seph anything about Pa, but I guess this is how we’re doing it.
“Ghost Daddy?” Seph’s eyes bounce between me and Kayla. “Is that the title of some Taylor Swift song?”
We all startle when we hear a loud thud from the 3H unit.
Before any of us have time to react, Pa’s already peeking through the wall. “Your mom’s inside with Baby, Grace, and Jackie,” he reports back.
“What’s Achi doing here?”
Seph spins around. “Who are you talking to?”
Pa peeks again. “They’re fixing a mannequin that fell down.”
I’m about to ask why they’d need a mannequin for mahjong when Pa says, “… Beth has a wedding dress on.”
Excuse me?
Seph must see how furious I am because he doesn’t even try to block me when I tell him to move.
When I enter the 3H unit, the couch and Moseph shrine are pushed to the side to make room for a clothing rack of dresses.
Auntie Grace and Achi crowd around Ma, holding up different styles of wedding gowns.
“Nika?” Ma starts when she sees me. My whole body tenses at the sight of her in a wedding dress. “What are you doing here?” she asks.
As I’m struggling to find words, I hear Kayla squeak from behind me. “We came from Bible study!”
Ma’s wearing a veil and a beaded off-the-shoulder gown that hugs her figure. She takes steps toward me, and the dress glides along with her every move. My mom has never looked more beautiful.
“Wow,” I hear Pa breathe out, as if the wind got knocked out of him—if ghosts had wind in them, at least.
My brain’s still short-circuiting when Ma stammers, “W-we didn’t want to bother you, so I asked Baby if we could try on wedding gowns here. I know how busy you are with school and classes…”
Achi can’t even look me in the eye when I turn to her. I’m not dumb, and my family doesn’t need to sugarcoat things for me. We all know why Ma didn’t want me around for this. Who in their right mind would include the daughter who bails on the engagement, hates the fiancé, and yells at her mom?
My feelings about the wedding aside, I’m tired of being the person who makes my mom’s life harder. No, I want to be the reason something good happens to her for once.
“I want to help,” I hear myself say.
Auntie Baby doesn’t notice the painful tension wafting among the Ilagan family members.
“See, I told you Nika would want to be here,” Auntie Baby says, scolding Ma.
“You know, Seph really inherited his father’s sense of style.
Sobrang porma din ni Francis. Look how great Seph, Kayla, and Nika carry themselves. Their generation knows fashion!”
No one points out the irony that we’re all wearing our wrinkled school uniforms.
Auntie Baby orders Ma to face the full-length mirror in their sala. “I’m sure Nika would agree with me about the fit.”
Ma tries pulling down the lining and glances at me through the mirror’s reflection. She then carefully asks, “What do you think, Niks? Is it too tight?”
“No,” I hear Pa answer for me.
But Ma doesn’t hear him, so she’s still studying my face, waiting for an answer.
“You look…”
Like a bride. Ma looks like a bride.
My throat catches when I try uttering the words.
I scrunch my hair tie between my fingers, willing all my real thoughts to stay secret.
Just say that Ma looks good, that the dress fits well—hell, even complimenting how good her calves look is better than standing in silence.
You can handle holding things in and being supportive for Ma right now.
Yet the very thought of her marrying someone else, of our family moving on and everything changing … all of that makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
Shut it down, Nika. Shut your emotions down!
“Nika?” Achi prompts, and I can feel my eyes start to well up. This whole room with veils and dresses is all too loud and overwhelming.
“Sorry,” I tell my family, and give some lame excuse that my stomach was hurting before bolting right out of there.