Chapter 15
“I would like it on record,” Allan said, watching Robby attempt to light a portable stove on the beach with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb, “that you specifically said, and I quote, ‘Don’t worry, magaling akong magluto.’”
“But I am!” Robby said, not looking up. “It’s just hard to find the right ingredients here.”
“That’s not the problem, Robby.”
“Just a little patience.”
They’d hiked out that Sunday to a small, mostly empty cove twenty minutes past the last sari-sari store, Robby’s idea of a proper first date, apparently, involving a rented cooler, two plastic chairs strapped precariously to the back of his motorcycle, and a bag of ingredients for what he’d promised would be “the best sinigang you’ll ever have on a beach. ”
Forty minutes later, the “best sinigang” was a pot of lukewarm, faintly smoky water that had, at some point, given up on becoming soup altogether.
“Okay,” Robby admitted, staring into the pot with the grief of a man watching his own grand romantic gesture die in real time. “Maybe, maybe this wasn’t the best plan.”
“It’s genuinely terrible,” Allan agreed, delighted. “I love it so much.”
“You’re supposed to be impressed.”
“I am impressed. I’m impressed you thought a beach stove would out-cook my mother’s kitchen. That takes real confidence.”
“You’re really sabotaging my ego right now,” Robby said, but he was laughing now too, defeat settling into something warmer.
Robby’s phone rang before either of them could sit down properly. He answered on the second ring, tone shifting instantly, the easy laughter dropping into something more careful.
“Tita? Slow down. Yes he’s with me.” A pause, listening, jaw tight.
“Okay. Is she talking normally? Yes. Is she dizzy?” Another pause, longer this time, Allan going still beside him.
“Okay. Okay, good. Tell her to sit, drink water, and call the health center anyway just to log it. We’ll be there in twenty minutes if anything changes. ”
He hung up, exhaling slowly.
“They’ve been trying to call you, but your phone cannot be reached. Your mom’s blood pressure monitor flagged something,” he said, already halfway to standing before he caught himself and sat back down. “Tita Becky panics first and reads the actual numbers second. She’s fine, probably. Resting.”
Allan was already reaching for his own phone before Robby finished the sentence, thumb hovering over Cora’s contact photo, the old ten-hours-on-a-ferry panic climbing straight up his spine like it had never actually left.
“Let me just — I should call her. I should just check —”
“Allan.” Robby caught his wrist, gentle, before he could dial. “She’s sitting up, talking normally, no dizziness. Tita Becky’s exact words, not mine. If I thought it was serious, I’d already be on the motorcycle, and you’d be behind me.”
“You said ‘probably.’”
“I say probably about everything,” Robby said.
“It’s a work habit. Doesn’t mean I’m not sure.
” He turned Allan’s hand over in his, thumb pressing once against his pulse point like he was taking it on purpose.
“You want to call her, call her. But call her because you want to hear her voice, not because you think this is the text you got in Manila all over again. It isn’t.
I promise, if it were, we’d already be moving. ”
Allan made himself breathe, the reflex slowly losing its grip.
He called anyway, mostly because Robby was right and he needed to hear it for himself: Cora answered on the second ring, mildly annoyed at being interrupted mid-crossword, more insulted by Tita Becky’s theatrics than by her own blood pressure, and hung up on him inside ninety seconds with a brisk “I’m fine, anak, go enjoy your date” that did more for Allan’s nervous system than anything else could have.
“Well?” Robby asked, watching him pocket the phone.
“She’s annoyed that I called,” Allan said, and felt himself actually relax for the first time since the phone had rung. “That’s usually a good sign.”
The word cost sat between them anyway, unspoken: another possible trip to Virac, another set of fees the household would have to absorb on top of everything else, and underneath it, the quieter fact Allan hadn’t let himself fully look at yet: that loving someone here didn’t come with a schedule that asked permission first, and neither did his mother’s health.
They ended up eating the suman and dried mangoes Robby had packed as backup, “In case,” he admitted, “something went wrong.” They sat side by side on the sand with their shoes off, the failed sinigang pot forgotten between them, the tide creeping in slow enough to ignore for another hour at least.