Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mina
“You’re late.”
I considered driving into traffic to avoid coming here, Mother.
“Sorry,” I settle on.
My mother scrunches her face up and ushers me inside.
“Hurry up. They’ll be here any minute.” She looks over her shoulder at me as we head into the kitchen, and I almost wither away under her scrutiny and the condescending tsks paired with the shake of her head. “Do you have nothing better to wear?”
The cherry on top of her comment comes when she pinches the loose skin of my arm through my tight long sleeve that hides all of my tattoos.
“What have you been eating?”
Translation: you’ve gained weight.
I say nothing. She doesn’t actually expect a response. She speaks to hear the sound of her own voice and get her point across without anyone’s input.
My skin crawls the moment I cross the threshold and leave my shoes at the door.
There’s always been something off about this house.
I’ve thought it ever since I was a child.
I used to think it was because the place never seemed to get much sunlight, which always left every room perpetually cold—even in the height of summer.
I now know it’s because I’ve never felt welcomed wherever my mother is. Whether it’s in her car, at her work as a substitute teacher at a nearby school, at church, or quietly eating dinner at her friend’s house. It always seems like she doesn’t want me there, yet she keeps insisting on seeing me.
At twenty-four, I haven’t learned to say no. And so, the toxic cycle continues.
Anxiety skitters through me as I follow her into my childhood home.
It feels like something bad is about to happen—usually because it does.
Mom always finds something new to poke at that sends me home crying.
I’m way past walking on eggshells; I’m the goddamn egg, and part of my shell has already cracked off.
Five different items of religious paraphernalia greet me right at the entrance.
A cross hangs above a mass-produced painting of an unnervingly yellowy-green forest Mom has always claimed is an original.
A couple picture frames decorate the walls, featuring family holidays with me as a two-foot-tall child, chunky enough to look like I was about to burst.
“Hi, Dad,” I say above the sound of the TV when we pass him lounging on the couch in the living room.
He grunts in greeting.
Lovely to see you, too, as always.
The kitchen is absolute fucking carnage.
I’d massage my temples if Mom weren’t already barking a long list of instructions at me like we’re on an episode of Hell’s Kitchen.
I’m peeling carrots and mixing adobo between frying two dozen lumpia while Mom does .
. . Actually, I don’t care what she’s doing on her side of the kitchen.
As long as her mouth isn’t moving, she can do whatever she wants.
Alas, the chaotic peace is short-lived when she comes over to tell me off about everything I’m doing—I’m not mixing well enough, the lumpia are burned (they’re not), and the carrots are cut too thick (she never clarified when I asked how she wanted them sliced).
I bite my tongue, nod, and try to do everything to a standard that won’t set her off.
I don’t need to ask to know Mom’s been in the kitchen since the early afternoon, while Dad came home from work and immediately planted himself on the couch.
It’s been their daily routine ever since I can remember.
Sometimes he sits outside to read a book, or blasts videos on his phone loud enough to hear down the street.
We’re making enough food to feed fifteen people, not six and a half humans.
My family lives by many rules. Somewhere near the top is the belief that if you don’t have leftovers, then you’re a bad host because your guests have left hungry.
From the living room, Dad hacks out a cough that rattles the house just as I’m getting ready to warm up the bistek and pancit. I’d be concerned he was dying if he didn’t follow it up with the combined gagging-spitting sound.
The doorbell chimes, and my mood dampens further. If having dinner with my parents wasn’t bad enough, I’m officially about to spend an evening with two families playing matchmaker.
“Go welcome them,” Mom snaps before the doorbell even stops ringing.
I swallow down a sharp breath and use the short journey between the kitchen and the entrance to mentally prepare myself for the rest of the evening.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to be part of the song and dance of meeting someone from church’s son, while he and I both pretend we aren’t hating every second of our existence. It doesn’t get any easier.
Silver lining? At least this time I know who they’re attempting to marry me off to.
Tita Agnes’s boisterous voice can be heard throughout the entire house as she rambles in Tagalog about how Dad looks—skinnier, apparently. I haven’t paid enough attention to notice.
I slow my steps around the corner, readying for the tornado to hit.
Her comments to Dad immediately cut off when she sees me. She practically bulldozes Dad to the side and crushes me to all four-foot-something of her. “Hello, beautiful girl,” Tita Agnes croons, giving me one too many cheek-to-cheek kisses.
I prefer greetings that involve zero physical contact.
Still, my lips pull into a smile of their own accord, and I can’t help blushing a little.
I’ve always liked her. She’s the opposite of my mother in every way: cool, laid back, and says things that don’t make me hate myself.
Truthfully, she’s the dream mother-in-law.
Mom isn’t the biggest fan of her, but the two husbands have started playing tennis together, and the logical solution to simultaneously handle their single offspring and quieten their wives’ incessant bickering is to play matchmaker.
Agnes bats my arm and points an accusatory finger at me. “I haven’t seen you in church or any of the gatherings in months! Where have you been, and how did you get even more pretty, eh?” She taps my cheek that hasn’t really lost its childlike roundness.
“I’ve been busy with work,” I say, trying to look guilty about it.
I’ve been dodging meeting them at church for the past couple of months—actually, I’ve been dodging going with my parents to church and the many Filipino gatherings for a few years now.
“Ah.” Agnes tsks, giving my forearm a solid squeeze. All this touching is making me a little ill. “You work too hard.”
This, I am at least genuinely guilty about. She probably doesn’t want to hear about all my extracurricular activities.
“Christine is in the kitchen,” Dad tells her in Tagalog.
She motions me to say hi to the rest of our guests before scurrying off to make my mother suffer a little bit.
I offer my hand to her husband, Tito Jacob, exchanging a respectful hello before moving on to the real star of this event: Jacob’s son, Thomas.
“Hey.” His lips pull into an overly enthusiastic greeting.
Oh no, he might actually be into this whole idea.
Jet-black hair, deeply tanned skin, freshly shaved facial hair, and a crisp blue button-down shirt. Thomas isn’t that much taller than me, which is saying a lot, since I consider myself vertically challenged. But he’s still tall compared to me.
He’s . . . I mean, Thomas has a face. Is it attractive? Well, it’s not terrible.
He’s not Leo, that’s for sure.
“Hi.” I smile politely at him, accepting his extended hand to sell this entire performance.
We’ve known each other since we were in diapers—in the sense that our families hung out in the same crowd and attended the same events every couple of months—but we’ve never had intimate dinners between us.
Growing up, he was always just “Jacob’s son” to me.
At first, I knew him as Snotty Thomas because I’d never met someone so prone to getting a cold.
Then he became the Thomas who was obsessed with gaming.
He and his group of friends didn’t let girls join other than to hang out and watch.
Joyce and I thought we were far too cool for them anyway.
And then he became just Thomas.
Now? Thanks to Mother, he’s Thomas, Tito Jacob’s son, who’s a good boy that just came home from university and got a good job at a big accounting firm in the city.
I’m not sure if this night will be more or less bearable if I remember him as Snotty Thomas.
“Come in, come in,” Dad says, hanging back to let them take their shoes off. “What do you want to drink?”
I leave without being told and grab their orders, then place various homemade snacks on the coffee table, pretending I’m the picture-perfect future wife and an exceptional host who lives to serve.
Not that I’m going through the motions to avoid my mom’s wrath.
Not that I’m quietly seething that I’ve never once seen any male help out in the kitchen or play server like this.
Whether it’s my uncles, nephews, cousins, or family friends, every single male sits on their ass while the women cook, clean, and set up the table. Always.
And because I don’t feel like I have any choice other than what I’ve been trained to do, I go through the motions, constantly asking myself whether the angle of the forks and placemats would earn Mom’s seal of approval.
It isn’t long before we’re huddled around the table, heads bowed as Agnes leads grace, then everyone launches into chatter—and by everyone, I mean Mom and Agnes take turns trying to be the one talking the loudest.
I speak every once in a while, but it’s always mindless comments about the weather, or the news, or gasping appropriately at various bits of gossip.
My anxiety picks up whenever there’s a lull in conversation, because that means there might be an opening where I’m expected to actually talk to Thomas.
But Agnes is always quick to bring something else up.