Chapter 17 #2
I try answering while inserting some bragging on the side. “The bakery is always featured in lists of pastry shops you need to try in Manila,” I tell him. “Her siopaos would be sold in every supermarket if Ma didn’t keep turning them down.”
He keeps asking me questions when I realize something. Pa didn’t know that Ma has a bakery.
“How did you get here?” I ask him.
Pa stretches and wiggles his arms. “I floated,” he jokes.
“You didn’t know this store was Ma’s,” I say. “And I never told you the address or wrote it down anywhere in my room…”
“Superstar, I was married to your mother. That bond doesn’t go away,” he explains. “Even in the afterlife, I can sense her presence anywhere—”
Pa suddenly stops talking when Dr. Derrick steps out of the kitchen carrying an armload of coffee mugs.
“Annika!” He startles and my heart lurches when a mug falls to the floor.
I kneel down to clean up the shards when he waves me away.
“Ah, let me take care of it. The full moon makes us all a little clumsy.”
Once Dr. Derrick goes to the back to throw out the shattered mug, Pa says, “He’s really into the moon, ‘no?”
“The moon is his best friend,” I deadpan.
“Kaya pala he has a moon bumper sticker. You would think that a dentist would rely more on science—”
“Right?” Thank god someone in my family is finally calling “Dr.” Derrick out. “Achi told him I had trouble sleeping once, and he said I should pay attention to the ‘lunar cycle.’”
Pa scoffs and I feel extremely vindicated.
I’m about to continue my rant when another realization dawns on me.
“When did you see his bumper sticker?”
“What?”
“Dr. Derrick’s car,” I repeat. “How did you know he has a bumper sticker?”
Pa takes a moment before answering. “Saw it outside.”
“But he always parks his car by his clinic.”
“That’s what I meant,” he says. “I saw it at the clinic.”
“How do you know where his clinic is? Ma was always the one who dropped me off for my dentist appointments.”
Pa crosses his arms. “Superstar, what’s with the interrogation?”
…
Wait a minute.
“Were you stalking Dr. Derrick?!”
He opens his mouth but struggles to form a response. If Pa’s cheeks had color, they’d totally be flushing right now.
“Oh my god. You’re jealous!”
“I am not jealous,” he says, still frantic from all the jealousy. “It’s my responsibility as your father to background check anyone who spends time with my family. I have the right to have questions about his obsession with the moon and why he insists on a purple tie.”
“Sobrang selos mo, Pa,” I tease him.
“I’m not.”
“Then why’re you so defensive?”
His mouth twists. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
I really am. I mean, if I was a ghost and my wife got engaged to someone else, I’d stalk him too! It’s refreshing to have someone in my family act like how I would for a change.
Dr. Derrick then emerges from the kitchen with Ma this time. Pa levitates a little bit higher when Ma gives Dr. Derrick instructions at the counter. It’s like when Kayla’s Pomeranian straightens her posture before she pees to mark her territory.
Ma notices me and gestures toward my phone. “Who’s that?”
I raise the phone closer to my ear and tell her I’m on a call with Kayla.
When Ma’s focus switches back to the dentist, I look at Pa, who’s hovering even higher, practically close to the ceiling. “Want me to tell Ma that you’re taller than Dr. Derrick?”
He floats back down and lies again. “I’m not jealous.”
“I can also show him old pictures so he can see that you have better style.”
He shakes his head, but his eyes hint at a shadow of a smile. “No need to state the obvious, Superstar.”
I’m about to assure Pa that I’d pick him a million times over Dr. Derrick when I hear someone call my surname.
“Ilagan?”
Seph enters the bakery, his face breaking into a smile and nose scrunch when he sees me.
I have the impulse to say hi when I remember that I’m still pissed at him.
I point to the phone next to my ear when Seph keeps trying to talk to me. Busy, I mouth, and turn away from him.
“Seph? What’re you doing here?” Ma beams and runs around the counter as if a celebrity was visiting the bakery. Even my mother is always so weirdly protective over him. “Are you hungry? Want some merienda? I’ll make you one of our special pies.”
“Thanks, Auntie. I’m here to pick up an order—” Seph gets drowned out by Ma offering him more food.
Then Pa asks me out of nowhere, “Nililigawan ka ba niya?”
“No!” I say so loudly that people shopping by the pastry displays shoot glances at me.
I lower my voice and hiss, “He’s not courting me.”
“Sure ka?” He hovers closer, his gaze bouncing between me and Seph. “You’re seeing him a lot.”
“I see you a lot and you’re not courting me.”
He crosses his arms and smirks. “Why so defensive?”
“Wait lang. I’m the one teasing you—”
“What?” I spin around when I feel someone tapping my shoulder.
It’s Seph holding out a Buns by Beth package. His lips quirk up when I face him, but his expression seems less … cocky. Like, he’s nervous for some reason? I peer at the box he’s holding. Maybe he’s trying to return a box of expired siopaos.
Yet Ma continues to rave about Seph behind him. “He ordered some siopaos to get sent to our place, but I told him he didn’t have to go through the hassle. Give them while we’re all here!”
I stare at the ten-piece siopao box. “You ordered this for us?”
He offers the box again with a tentative smile. “Chaperone’s treat.”
“Uy.” I hear Pa tease. “I did that, too, when I was courting your mom.”
It takes all my willpower to not answer back, Seph is not courting me!
Also, no offense to my mother, but if I were being courted, I would want something nicer than a box of siopaos.
Then I hear Ma order me to take the box. “Kawawa naman si Seph. He put all that effort into giving a gift and you made him hold that box for so long.”
“It barely weighs a pound,” I tell Ma. “Also, he bought siopaos that you made to give back to you. You made more of an effort with his gift.”
Ma then starts lecturing me about having better manners.
“You know, I used to love it when your dad would buy siopaos from me. I never had a day with zero sales because your dad always bought me a box!”
She keeps going on about the proper protocol when accepting gifts, but my mind barely registers anything past her first sentence.
… Did Ma just bring up Pa?
I don’t even remember the last time Ma casually brought up a memory of my dad.
Meanwhile, my father is still fixated on Seph’s siopaos. “If you’re not going to accept your sweetheart’s gift, I’ll take it,” he teases.
My cheeks immediately flush at Pa’s “sweetheart” comment.
When I whisper to Pa to cut it out, he keeps teasing me to accept Seph’s siopaos and reaches for the box.
But instead of his hand slipping through like it does with all solids, his fingers actually …
make contact. I turn to Pa and notice how his body is less pale.
It’s like his body is slowly filling in with more and more color.
The white robes he’s been wearing morph and cling closer to his body so he starts looking like he’s wearing a white suit.
It reminds me of when I got hooked to an IV in the hospital and saw the fluids course through the tubes.
Instead of the chalk-white complexion, Pa’s hands are almost the same shade as mine.
No one else in the bakery notices that my ghost father looks like he’s been brought back to life.