Once Upon a Sunset

by Tif Marcelo

  Margo, all the while, watched in a mild daze. Flora called her anak. Child.

  “Wait, where are we going? What’s happening?” Diana asked.

  Flora’s voice quavered. “We cannot waste any more time than what has already passed. I’m going to greet my guests, we will cut the cake, and then celebrate this new beginning.” She raised her eyebrows when no one around her moved. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

  The group startled into action. A wheelchair was produced at their side. And as Flora tutted instructions to the caregiver and her granddaughter, Margo stepped into the background with her daughter, who downed the rest of her champagne.

  Margo didn’t drink—it didn’t agree with her stomach—but for the first time in a very long time, she was tempted. Her emotions were in knots. She had had every intention of telling this woman off, and now she was about to follow her into the party and then what?

  Cameron came to mind then, his words, the conviction in his expression at the airport. His kiss, a reminder that she was who she was despite all this, despite what would happen in the next room.

  “Fuck them,” she whispered.

  “Ma, did you cuss?” Diana slurred. Her daughter clearly had already had too much. Her fourth glass of champagne was in her hand. Diana always walked with a kind of a poise; she ran with a purpose. She had to-do lists that were actually completed and checked-off, but right now, her limbs were like a baby giraffe’s, too limber and loose. Not a good sign.

  “Do you think all those people know by now?” Diana asked too loudly when they entered the main party room. “They shouldn’t be staring at us. We should be staring at them. That’s right, bitches, look. We belong here.”

  Joshua stifled a snort.

  Oh, to clamp a hand over her daughter’s mouth.

  They made their way to the cake. Margo attempted to slip away from center stage. This was Flora’s moment, despite the unfolding family drama. The band was ready for its cue, and the servers lit the candles. But Flora reached out to Margo’s forearm and tugged her back into place. “Stay here.”

  Out of respect for Flora, and because the phones had come out of pockets and purses, she stayed. Margo understood the power of social media. It had only taken a few pictures on her Instagram account before one went viral.

  Behind her, Diana hiccupped. “Are there really a hundred candles on that cake? I wonder where the closest smoke detector is?” She craned her neck upward. “Oh good, there it is.”

  A server handed a microphone to Colette, who set it below her grandmother’s lips.

  Flora’s shaking voice echoed into the silent room. “Thank you for coming today. Even if I don’t feel well enough to see all of you personally, I am so happy that you are here to celebrate with me. Today, I am one hundred years old. That is a lot of years. I have forgotten many details, but the big things stay with me. You all have changed before my eyes. The country has changed. I have changed, too.”

  “You’ve become more and more beautiful!” someone yelled from the crowd.

  “Ah, Junn, you are too kind.” Flora laughed and took a breath. “I’d better hurry up before I have to sit.” Laughter permeated the crowd. Her caregiver made to get Flora’s wheelchair, but she waved her away and continued. “When you get to be my age, you don’t wish for material things, because none of that matters. We are but skin and bones. Fragile outsides that cover up what matters inside. Yes, even you, Manolo—you won’t live forever.” She eyed a man mid-pull at his beer, who stilled at being called out. Someone cackled.

  “So I won’t be making a birthday wish today, because my wish has come true. My wish was for the Cruz family to come together again, as you all have done every year for me, but it was always missing something, someone. But she has found us, and now I want to invite my daughter Margaret and my granddaughter Diana to cut the cake. With me.”

  A hush of words rippled through the crowd. From elsewhere someone gasped. Colette burst out into happy sobs.

  “Margo, Diana,” instructed Flora.

  Margo followed, caught in the flow of the moment. The band strummed the birthday song.

  “Just to be clear, it was me who suggested the PI,” Diana cheered to no one in particular as she joined her hands on the cake knife. Together they lifted the knife. It sliced through the cake with ease, but as she caught the interested stares of the guests, Margo was aware that despite this joyful moment, their happily-ever-after was still to be determined.

  * * *

  The day-to-afternoon transformation of Flora’s home was drastic. After the hours-long party, the big room was now devoid of people, and its comfortable plush furniture and greenery and various jugs and antique pieces were back in their right places.

  Margo was still on edge. She’d survived the pointed looks and circling questions of Flora’s guests. She’d even found a way to keep her daughter from saying something scathing, though she mostly had Joshua to thank for that.

  “I trust you had a good time today?” Flora asked. They were in her private dining room, sitting at a mahogany table inlaid with gold leaf. The chair backs were carved into a flower design Margo couldn’t help but finger as she sat down.

  “It was wonderful.”

  “It’s only wonderful with a good nap slipped in.” Flora’s face squeezed into a grin. “Escaping in the middle is the secret. Sometimes you just need a break.” She eyed the bowl of rolls on the table. “Can you hand me one of those, Margo? My doctor wants me to give up bread, but I still refuse to give up my pan de sal. One a day is worth it.” As Margo placed a roll on her plate, Flora’s eyes flicked up to Joshua, then to his girls, dropped off by his ex earlier in the day, still in their party dresses.

  “YOLO, Lola. You only live once,” Joshua announced.

  “YOLO,” Flora enunciated. “Halika dito, children. Come.” She turned to the children as they got in line to mano, bringing her hand to their foreheads. “Don’t forget to greet Lola Margo, too.”

  Margo steeled her insides to keep her emotions from flowing out. She would never tire of this. She loved being a mother, and she could see herself spoiling these little ones rotten.

  “Okay, everyone go to the living room and play,” Joshua said.

  “And if you’re good, Lola will give you a snack,” Flora added.

  “Lola, it’s too late for merienda.” Joshua frowned. “They’ll never sleep.”

  “Did someone say merienda?” Philip walked in with small paper sacks and held them up. Colette followed him, still with a bounce in her step despite being on her feet all day.

  “I smell sugar,” Diana said, as if suddenly awake in her chair. She’d had a nap sometime during the party, and her hair was slightly unkempt.

  “Banana cue. Fried sugared plantains.” Colette set sacks down in front of Margo, Diana, and Flora. “A snack, but since this is a special day, served before our meal.”

  “Perfect, because I have the munchies,” Diana said.

  Joshua took the seat next to Margo and sighed. “Nonstop spoiling. Whenever we come here it’s like taking the kids to Disney—it’s the happiest place on earth.”

  “It’s different when you can send them back to Mom or Dad,” Margo said, taking out the banana cue by the stick, though she hesitated in eating it. Bananas and sugar might not do well with her blood sugar. She’d already had a piece of cake, and pancit, and little precious steamed rice cakes called kutsinta.

  “YOLO,” Flora said, placing the tip of the banana cue into her mouth. She moaned.

  Margo smiled and followed suit, taking a small bite. The dessert was heavenly; the banana was a perfect complement to the sugar, and she couldn’t resist taking another bite. But when she looked up at her daughter, she found Diana slack-jawed, eyes darting back from Flora to Margo and back in disapproval.

  Setting the banana down, Margo sipped some water and let the treat wash down her throat. She eyed her daughter a message, to ask her what was wrong, and Diana responded with a look tha
t she could not decipher, complete with hand gestures that made her look like she was cheating at Pictionary.

  “Esme,” Joshua’s voice rose above the increasing squabble in the living room area, interrupting Margo’s thoughts. “Share your toys, okay?”

  “I don’t want to.” The older child’s shoulders slumped a little.

  “Hey.” He gestured for Esme to come to the table. Once next to him, he wrapped an arm around her, brought her close. “Your sister just wants to spend time with you and play with you, just like how I always wanted with Tita Colette.”

  “Except he tortured me,” Colette added from the opposite end of the table.

  “Anyway.” Joshua rolled his eyes. “Your tita shared all her toys with me, even her teddy bear. You should do the same.”

  “She might break it.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But even if she did, you both would have had a good time playing with it together, right?”

  “Okay, Tito.”

  He kissed the little girl on her forehead, turned her around, and sent her on her way.

  I like him, Margo thought. The man showed such care toward these girls.

  She stole another glance at her daughter. Despite the tension earlier between those two, there was something more, something unsettled between them. Curiosity, if she had to name it, and a little bit of play. He’d kept an extra eye on her today, took her side as she flitted through the crowd, as if knowing Margo had been overwhelmed herself. And the greatest indication of all—Diana had let him.

  Sure enough, her daughter was now sneaking looks at Joshua.

  As the cook brought in food from the kitchen, an older gentleman walked into the room. “Oh, oh.” Next to her, Flora covered the banana cue with a napkin. “Docktór, please come in! Just in time. Sit here.” She raised a shaking arm to the free chair next to Diana.

  “Oh, no, Manang Flora, I don’t want to intrude. I couldn’t make it earlier but wanted to come to wish you a happy birthday.”

  “No, no. Come and stay. We’re about to eat.”

  The man took a hesitating first step, but as if deciding he didn’t really have much of a choice, strode to the table. As he neared, Flora said, “This is Dr. Troadio Sison. He has been my nag for decades.”

  A wary smile graced the doctor’s face as he greeted those he knew and shook Diana’s hand. When he turned to Margo, he said, “Though we know who’s really in charge. Please call me Junior.”

  “Margo.” She offered her hand.

  “This is Antonio’s daughter. My daughter,” Flora said.

  His eyebrows rose as he took a seat.

  “You aren’t the only one who was surprised,” Margo said in an easy matter-of-fact way that astonished even herself.

  He sniffed a laugh, though an incredulous, serious expression fell upon him.

  Flora invited her caregiver to the room. “Edna, have dinner with us now.”

  “Okay, ma’am,” she said, taking the seat on the other side of Margo.

  And as she sat, Margo shook her hand. “I don’t think we properly met.”

  “Edna Ramirez. I’ve been taking care of Manang Flora for a long time now.”

  “Family, I keep saying, the two of them,” Flora said, then rang the bell next to her plate. “Junior is a neighbor.”

  “And how about you?” Margo asked Edna, intrigued. The relationship between the two was easy, but there seemed more to this than the traditional caregiver/patient arrangement. “Where do you live?”

  “Down the hallway.”

  “She makes sure I don’t sneak out,” Flora supplied, then purposely glared at Dr. Sison. “I am watched everywhere, all the time.”

  At this Dr. Sison smiled. “I promise you, we don’t always succeed.”

  The table laughed, including Margo, though her memory harkened back to her mother, always surrounded by people who cared for her. Friends who respected her independence and who stoked her feisty nature that endured until she was finally bedridden. They’d gathered at her dinner table much like this group was around Flora, the banter plentiful.

  No one could tell Leora what to do, either.

  Across the table, Diana rolled her eyes slightly, unimpressed. Margo would need to have some alone time with her soon. She was seeing her daughter’s walls go up, brick by brick.

  Two women came into the room with platters of food. They were not dressed in the same clothing as the servers who assisted during the party, and Margo once again wondered the extent of the Cruz’s wealth, at the history that brought Antonio’s family to this success. Where had it begun? Or was this opulence from Flora’s family?

  Why didn’t Antonio return to her mother?

  She heaved a breath to snap herself out of that last question, which she had been asking herself since she read his letters. Besides wanting to be with Diana, that curiosity ultimately put her on that plane to Manila.

  Thank goodness Joshua’s girls led grace, and their voices shoved her out of her circular thinking. Thank goodness, too, for the food. While Margo was still stuffed from the party, the meal itself was so tantalizing that it found a different part of her stomach. Fried fish, lugaw, a rice porridge, tocino, fried eggs. All savory and hearty, and she could have eaten two helpings of each.

  The table descended into relatively comfortable conversation while everyone ate. Shortly, Dr. Sison bid the party farewell when he was called to visit another patient.

  Once everyone was served coffee and tea, Margo leaned toward Flora, compelled from the entire day’s experience. “Thank you for hosting us for this dinner. This is delicious.”

  “Breakfast is my favorite meal at all hours. And I expect for you to visit every day while you’re here.” Flora stirred her cup of tea. She watched Margo, making her feel more like five instead of seventy-five. “Since we have quite a bit to talk about, some personal and also business to discuss. Don’t we, Joshua?”

  Margo’s heart began the quick trill of a hummingbird’s.

  Joshua cleared his throat and said something under his breath.

  Flora raised a hand. “Joshua, why don’t you take Diana to the little house.”

  “Now?” he asked, frowning.

  “What’s the little house?” Diana asked. “And why shouldn’t my mother come, too?”

  “Because I have a few things I want to talk to your mother about, privately, and you might find the little house interesting. There is some … thing … for you to bring back. Is that okay, Margo?”

  Margo glanced at Diana, whose pointed look was pure objection. To keep the peace, her answer should have been a resounding no! She and Diana had to stick together. But if Flora could explain everything, truly everything, then Diana would have to concede.

  She pulled her eyes from her daughter. “It’s okay with me.”

  New Guinea

  November 18, 1944

  My dearest Leora,

  I haven’t received a letter from you in 68 days. Every mail call, I hope for a note from you. Every morning I pray for you to contact me. Every night I wonder what you have been doing. Onofre says you no longer live at home, and I can only guess that you have told your father about our child. Though he has seen you at Mrs. Lawley’s and has been leaving letters in the usual spot, he has not found a letter from you to send. I can’t do anything else but trust that all is well.

  I will be in the Philippines soon. The men are nervous and excited. We have lost people, Leora, but my friends are still here. And soon, we will land together as a family. Ignacio is especially excited. It is his joy that’s giving some hope, since mine is slowly fading as the days pass.

  But I will keep writing. I will keep writing until you tell me otherwise.

  Iniibig kita,

  Antonio

  Chapter Twenty

  So she says jump, and you say how high?” Diana asked as she paced after Joshua in the hallway outside of Flora’s suite.

  “Yep.” He reached for his pocket and deftly popped out a cigarette box. He kept
walking, leaving her to chase after him, which, of course, she did. “It’s called respect for elders.”

  Diana harrumphed.

  She had been dismissed, which put her in a mood. That woman back there with Flora? That wasn’t her mother. Her mother included Diana in everything. Every doctor’s appointment, every decision, even if simply for support.

  Diana didn’t have a choice but to follow Joshua, tail between her legs, with the hope that she would be able to glean her own information about those letters.

  But if she was being honest, she hadn’t minded escaping from the dining room. It was too close for comfort in there, with everyone shooting questions across the table to get to know one another. As if it was a casual gathering of friends, not a reunion of a broken family unit.

  When they both stepped out through a back-patio door into the warm night, Diana inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. Too much time had passed since her last outdoor run, and she missed the freedom of it, of letting her arms dangle at her sides while careering down a hill, or challenging her legs to lengthen their stride.

  And then she smelled smoke.

  She scrunched her nose and opened her eyes. Joshua was up ahead a few feet. His back was to her, and a sliver of smoke trailed up from where he stood.

  “You know that’s bad for you, right?” Diana called out.

  “That’s interesting because I don’t remember asking your opinion on it,” he said, turning. The backyard spotlight cast a shadow over his face, but she caught a trace of a smile on his lips.

  “Doctor’s prerogative to educate you on the consequences.”

  “Ah. Doctorsplaining.” He blew out a smoke ring, which she waved away. “And what would a doctor say about attempting to lick icing off a cake knife.”

  “Whatever, totally different!” Her face burned with embarrassment. She was never going to have champagne again, ever. Not only did she lose her verbal filter, but she also lost all composure. “I was being safe. It just looked so good, all that icing clumped together.”