Once Upon a Sunset

by Tif Marcelo

  He pursed his lips as if to stifle a laugh.

  “Ha ha.”

  “Thanks to me your lips and tongue are still intact,” he said, before he stilled. His eyes flashed with what she recognized from their first night as desire.

  And yep, she felt it, too. She shifted her feet. Scrambled to fill the quiet between them. “Well, thank you, for stripping me of the knife. My lips and tongue appreciate it.”

  Stripping? Oh my God. Was she still drunk?

  “My pleasure.” He stepped in closer, pointed with his free hand. “Aaand, speaking of lips, you have something on your cheek.”

  That didn’t make any sense at all to her, but she rubbed at her cheek.

  “Nope, it’s still there … to the left … a little lower.” And yet, despite his directions, she was failing. “May I?” he asked.

  “Yes, please. Just take it off.”

  Oh my God.

  The man was kind enough not to point out her Freudian slips, and simply brushed his thumb against her cheek. “There you go.”

  “Thank you,” she said, as another wave of awkwardness washed over them. She needed to straighten this conversation out, take her mind and language out of the gutter and redirect it toward the task at hand. “So, why were we sent out here?”

  “I’m supposed to show you something.”

  Her mood plummeted. “I’m not sure what you could show me that could properly justify what was done to my mom and granny. I don’t understand this dynamic. How everyone’s acting so calm, so casual in there … when she did what she did to our families.”

  He took a drag of his cigarette, and blew out smoke exaggeratingly away from her. He matched her stern expression. “What did she do to our families, Diana? Why don’t you tell me?”

  She growled at this loyalty, but in his expression she noted a true curiosity. “You really don’t know?”

  “No. Not that whatever you say will make me think that Lolo and Lola were fully responsible for whatever you claim.”

  How did that happen—how could he make her swoon one moment and then leave her frustrated the next?

  Diana didn’t mess with complicated personalities for this very reason—it took too much headspace, took too much work. Much of why she and Carlo had vibed was because they hadn’t needed to fight over their relationship. Their decision to be together was logical. They were easy. They were predictable.

  Of course, they also ended in disaster, so maybe she wasn’t the best at judging character after all.

  Bottom line: Joshua was like a mother in labor, angst and sharp emotions on the outside, but vulnerable on the inside, and maybe, Diana just had to wait it out. She had helped women in labor for hours. She could stand there for a minute longer.

  To find out the total truth about her family history, she would have to.

  “Well?” he asked.

  She met his eyes. “Antonio Cruz was a father who didn’t take responsibility for his child. And Flora Reyes aided and abetted his crime. Because of this my granny was left to care for her child, alone. And my mother suffered because of it.”

  He shook his head. “And that’s the final story.”

  “Obviously not. Hence the reason why I followed you out here. Otherwise, I would have convinced my mother to blow this joint, after seeing all”—she turned toward the house and raised a hand at it—“all this.”

  “Nothing is as easy as it looks. All that?” He pointed at the house. “That, and the parties; that is what everyone sees. But I believe every family has secrets, Diana.” He dropped the cigarette and, with a shake of his head, ground the butt with his shoe.

  “Oh, what a relief.” She waved away the smoke that wafted in her direction.

  “I would be more worried about the air pollution in Manila than that cigarette.”

  “Right, but wrapping your mouth around a chimney of tar doesn’t help, either.”

  “All right, all right, Dr. Cary. Let’s go.”

  She tried not to grin. “Where?”

  “Can’t you just come without having to ask every question under the sun?” He turned, obviously expecting Diana to follow.

  She scrambled after him. A path emerged adjacent to the cement fence line of the property, hidden behind lantana bushes. Diana ducked and weaved, following Joshua’s back and the contrasting tiles dug into the ground amid the grass.

  “Are we doing something illegal here? Because I don’t do illegal,” Diana said, and then corrected herself, remembering that, in fact, she was on vacation because she did break the rules. “I mean, not totally illegal anyway.”

  “Nope—they still own this part of the property.” He stopped, turning. His face sported a pained look. “Are you ready?”

  All of this angst and anticipation was not her style. “Yes, I was ready back there. What is it?”

  With a hand, he raised the bottom branch of a lantana bush that had climbed the side of the cement wall so that it encroached onto the path like an overhang. Diana ducked underneath, her hair catching in the leaves.

  What she saw took her breath away. It was a house—a farmhouse bungalow. White wooden exterior with a slightly pitched black roof. Black shutters and a wraparound porch with two rockers next to the front door. It seemed familiar; Diana dug within the recesses of her brain to remember.

  “It’s a California bungalow–style home,” Joshua said, and shuffled past her. The grass was sparse here, the ground muddy in parts; he sidestepped it. “It’s built with cement walls to withstand tropical storms, but it’s made to look like it as much as possible.”

  “Oh God, it is.” A picture flashed in Diana’s memory, a photograph of her granny next to her great-granddad in front of the Gallagher home in Marysville. Behind it was an expanse of fields, and a never-ending sky. It was one of a handful of photographs her granny had, after traveling across the country.

  “What …” she began to ask, but didn’t know where to start.

  “Lolo and Lola made their wealth out of real estate. They were great at it. He saved while she invested. Hotels, restaurants, resorts. They bought and sold over decades, looking for a place to settle down, and they decided it would be here in Forbes. Lolo Tony had this built when they moved in. I remember him being really stubborn about the details. I used to watch from the back porch of the house.” He pointed back toward where they came. “Before Lola insisted on putting a cement wall up. C’mon.” He gestured and climbed the porch, opening the door. It squeaked a melancholy sound, and out came the scent of wood.

  She’d expected a living-museum quality home, rickety insides with cobwebs, maybe old-fashioned equipment, a farm table and antique furnishings, a porcelain wash basin. But the inside was simply a home with real walls and wooden floors. The living room had a couch and a TV on a stand. A small glass-top breakfast table sat in the middle of an eat-in kitchen. “Oh. This is surprising. Was this like his man cave?”

  “You could say that. This was where he worked, where he read, and where he went when he needed to get away, which was most times. If someone asked for him, Lola would say, ‘He’s behind the wall,’ in her feisty way, and we’d know he was here and not to be bothered. Except by me, of course, because I was the favorite.” A grin graced his face, then it faltered a little, “Probably because we were both kind of the same. We didn’t belong anywhere or to anyone, truly.”

  He said it in such a tone that Diana’s heart softened, not only for Joshua, but for Antonio.

  No. She couldn’t let that happen.

  She followed him into the galley kitchen. It was simple and clean, though missing a refrigerator. Running a hand along the countertop, she found it free of dust. “Someone’s still cleaning it?”

  “I don’t want this house going to disrepair. There’s more.”

  The floorboard creaked as they entered the narrow hallway, into the first bedroom to the right, where a window greeted them. A desk looked outward onto the view of the back of the property, and farther away was a hint of a ce
ment fence.

  “This was his favorite spot, because it faces west. He even had the ground ahead leveled so he could have an unencumbered view, or as best as he could get with the next house being so close.”

  “Of course. The sunset.”

  “It was his thing,” he said.

  “Their thing,” she corrected. “Leora and Antonio’s.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “Lola Flora told us when we were little that Lolo had gone through a lot in the war. There were some things that we knew we couldn’t ask or talk about. As this house was being built, we just accepted it—that’s what we do, you know, in our culture. We accept the truth of our elders, sometimes without question. Even when this place was upside down with workers because he had to have this house built, no one dared to ask him why. And I have a feeling Lola Flora didn’t ask, either. There was always a bit of distance between them. They didn’t even sleep in the same bed. Then again, that was old-school, right?” He grinned, then opened the drawers.

  “When he died, he left me in charge of this house, among other things. Until then, no one had access to this home except the maids. Lola Flora didn’t step foot in this place—she was getting too old, and by then, I think, you get to a point in a marriage when you just accept things for what they are. But who am I to say—I’ve never been married.” He shrugged. “I decided to finally go through the contents of this house recently. At first, it felt like I was intruding. You might not be able to tell, but every part of this place is my lolo. I can feel him in here.” He pulled out an attaché case, rectangular and leather with a three-dial combination lock. He presented it to Diana. “I’ve been working on this combination lock for a while now and was just short of having it cut open when you reached out to my sister. I’m sure this is what Lola Flora wanted me to show you. I guess she thinks you might be able to open it.”

  Diana accepted the briefcase. Her fingers tingled at the cool leather, and she gasped when goose bumps trailed up her arm. Her gut was telling her that the truth she wanted lived in this case. She examined the lock, thumbed the dial. “No, but my mother might.”

  Leyte, Philippines

  January 28, 1945

  My dearest Leora,

  The Philippines is as beautiful as I remember. Everything is familiar and strange all at once. It’s like I’m reliving life. The smell of food cooking over charcoal and wood, the way the wind feels against my cheek, warm and wet—it’s sublime. Today, Ignacio and I dared each other to climb a coconut tree. The young boys in the barrio are experts here. They shimmy to the top without even a rope around their bodies, gripping tightly around the trunk. They are adept in cutting coconuts down with one fell machete swoop. They make it look so easy and exhibit such a freedom, despite the war around them. I envy them sometimes.

  Anyway, I barely got a quarter of the way up, even with a rope tied around me and the trunk. The tree wasn’t tall in comparison to the rest, but I didn’t have the right technique, or maybe I’m not as strong as I think I am. Ignacio and the kids had a laugh, because he got up to the top without a problem though couldn’t quite get a coconut down without effort.

  I laughed along with them, but inside, I wondered: How could I not get up there? Why couldn’t I? In the moment, I felt like I didn’t belong.

  Well, it’s nothing that didn’t pass quickly. When I drank the coconut water, it was all better. One day, when all this is over, and we’re together, I’ll have a coconut cut down and you can drink its juice, and we can crack it open and peel the coconut meat from the fruit itself. There is nothing like it.

  Maybe it’s because of my old memories coming back from when I was a child, or the fact that we are again on solid ground, but the island is a sight to see. The sky is blue despite the rubble on the ground. The water is warm and inviting, and there are so many Filipinos. Men and women and children. Some frightened, others upset, but there is also happiness. The people—my people—are resilient and joyful. Despite the destruction of this war, I am greeted with open arms. I’m treated like family even if I’m wearing an American soldier’s uniform. I’m one of the good guys, but am I really? These people have seen worse times, and I, in this uniform, am part of that, too.

  It’s all so confusing.

  It’s even more confusing because I feel like I’ve lost my center, you. Our letters tethered me, and whenever I got lonely, all I simply had to do was to close my eyes.

  When you told me you were with child, this tether became a rope. It kept me alive, Leora. Ignacio has been helping me count the days. You should give birth to our baby soon. Will I know when I become a father? Will it be a boy or a girl? Will the child look like me, have my dark skin? And will he or she have your eyes?

  During the loneliest nights, I have succumbed to doubt, that maybe you don’t believe that we can make a family. That it’s too hard. Maybe you believe the world isn’t ready for a Pinoy and a white woman to be together. That I will only be a hindrance in your and our baby’s life.

  But I haven’t given up. I still have faith.

  Please write me.

  Iniibig kita,

  Antonio

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Margo listened as Diana’s and Joshua’s footsteps faded into the background, then said to Flora, “I don’t usually feel the need to send my daughter away if there’s something serious to talk about.”

  “Yes, but they will bring back something important. And I need to talk to you, alone.” She coughed.

  Edna shot to her feet, and concern flashed onto her face. “Manang, are you okay? Let’s put you in bed to rest. It’s been a long day.”

  Flora waved a hand though her breathing had become slightly labored.

  “You’re so stubborn sometimes, Lola. Tito Junior said not to push it,” Colette added, now at the edge of her seat. “I’m texting him now.” She took out her phone and thumbed the screen.

  “Anak, one doesn’t get to one hundred years old without being a little stubborn. I am old. I am allowed to be sick. Something has got to kill me.”

  “COPD is not a joke.” Edna frowned.

  “You have COPD?” Margo scooted closer.

  “It’s nothing. A tinge of it started earlier this year,” Flora answered.

  Edna rolled her eyes. “A tinge, heh.”

  Margo agreed with the sentiment. “COPD is serious.…”

  Flora clucked. “I’m taking my medicine, anak, and I have my heart and lungs listened to whenever any of these children call the doctor. Right now, I have something to say, something about your father and me.”

  Margo’s thoughts ground to a halt. She leaned in, intent on every word, as was everyone else in the room: Edna, Colette, and Philip silent in their chairs.

  “I met Antonio in Tacloban, my hometown. It was destroyed, both by the Japanese and the Americans when they leveled the ground. We hid in the mountains, but many of my friends died. Family. Neighbors. We didn’t know who to trust, or who to thank. That is what happens in war. We weren’t sure who to turn to. We just had to survive, to eat, to live somehow. I was twenty-five, young, though not very optimistic. I knew how to use a machete. I was the eldest of three sisters, and responsibility came with that.”

  Flora’s eyes glazed over in memory, and she continued, “Antonio was part of the First Filipino Infantry Regiment, which split up after they arrived in New Guinea, and he was moved to the Sixth Army. In New Guinea, no one knew how entrenched the Japanese were. Antonio said that the country was beautiful but so dangerous, though he never spoke of what happened there, or in Leyte. Not aloud.

  “The things Antonio said in his sleep … even after we married. He used to call out Leora’s name.”

  Her mother’s name coming out of this woman’s mouth sent a shiver through Margo. In her own research as a young woman, Margo hadn’t found much about the First Filipino Regiment. At some point, in the hustle and bustle of life, she’d put the effort aside, settling for the very basics of history
of World War II in the Philippines. Then again, it had been easier to just accept what was told to her. Less painful than digging into the real truth. Her father had been an enigma in story form.

  Flora broke out into an incessant cough.

  Edna tutted, pushed her chair back, and strode to her side. “Time for bed.”

  “I’ll help.” Colette stood.

  “No, you won’t.” Philip gently coerced her to her seat and joined Edna.

  Margo stood to help, too. She took Flora’s other arm and helped her up from the chair. The woman was so light and fragile that Margo feared too much pressure on her bones would crush them. Earlier, in her beautiful garments and amid the lure of festivities, Flora was a regal matriarch. Now, she was simply an elderly woman who struggled to walk to her bed, shuffling in her slippers.

  “I’m here.” A low voice rushed into the space. Dr. Sison had a doctor’s bag in hand. As Flora perched on the mattress, with Margo still on one side, he settled his bag on the bedside table. It was only then Margo noticed the oxygen tank, discreetly tucked behind the bed, a long tube attached to it.

  After they’d both settled Flora in bed, the woman’s eyes shut. Margo shared a glance with Edna, who was looking at her lovingly, which struck a cord of regret. That was how Margo had looked at her own mother at the end of her life, when there was little left to do but preserve her dignity at a time when her body was failing her.

  Margo didn’t have to pick up a stethoscope to know that Flora was sick; she could hear the crackles of her breathing Still, Dr. Sison did his duty; he listened to her heart and lungs. Gave her the customary warnings and guidelines, and even admonished her for pushing herself today. “And please, you should use your oxygen.”

  “I already use it when I’m asleep,” she countered.

  He sighed.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Dr. Sison grinned. “How about right now?”

  “Fine,” she said after a dramatic second.