Once Upon a Sunset

by Tif Marcelo

  He cleared his throat, pressed on the gas. “I think it’s admirable, your profession. I certainly couldn’t do it. The screaming women. All the … fluids.”

  She laughed. “Well, there is definitely that.”

  “And screaming.”

  “Yes, that, too. But I call it a battle cry. Sometimes it comes in the form of tears, but it’s pure determination.”

  “I’ve got major respect for it. Child-rearing, too. My ex aside, the girls are a wonder. I don’t know how this screwup got so lucky to have become a part of their lives.”

  She rubbed his knuckles with a thumb. “You’re not really a screwup, are you? Antonio wouldn’t have called you back here to Manila if you were anything but capable.”

  “I guess.” He sighed. “Truth be told, my resumé is actually pretty kick-ass. And yet …”

  “What?” Diana waited at his pause, not knowing if she should pry further. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I guess since you shared, I should, too, right?”

  Diana shook her head. “No, you don’t have to.”

  “No, I want to tell you. It’s just hard to talk about.” His lips pressed into a line. His gaze darted left, then right. “I said I came to Manila because Lolo Tony called me back, but I was ready. I graduated from UCLA, in business, but I didn’t feel at ease enough in California to live there permanently. I missed Manila. So I came back, started grad school here. I also went through a wild streak—I was a spoiled little shit, you see. That’s what money sometimes does to you. Anyway, I was finishing up my last semester in school, and I cheated, on an exam. And was caught.”

  Diana winced. “Oh no.”

  “Yep.” He tore his eyes away from her and fixed them on the road in front of them. “Bad move. I regret it every day, even if Lolo saved me from all the consequences. I got kicked out of school, but I still worked for him. I still had a place to live, food to eat. He could have thrown me out into the street. He was so shamed. I was ashamed.” He half laughed. “The man worked me hard. He never brought it up, but I felt the gratitude every day. He taught me everything about loyalty and family, and hard work. And I swore to be better.”

  The car swerved into a space where around them a mass of pedestrians walked in every direction. In front of them was an entrance marked with an archway. The entrance itself was as wide as a one-lane road. Vendors with aquariums and tubs of clams and other shellfish lined the sidewalk.

  “Do you still want to hang out with me even after knowing this?” he asked.

  Diana didn’t hesitate. “I do. Very much so. One decision shouldn’t determine your fate.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way.” He glanced askance at her, lips turning up into a smile. “You’ve just made me a happy man. So, are you ready for a mind-bender?” He gestured at the windshield. “Because that is an outdoor dry and wet market. Welcome to the Philippines in the way I know and love,” he said, getting out of the car, then opening the door for Diana. “Open mind, okay?”

  When she stepped out onto the noisy street, she leaned forward and kissed Joshua, and said, “Open mind.” But inside, two other words sprung to mind: open heart.

  * * *

  At the palenke, vendors sat almost atop one another, and the squawk of conversation invaded the air. Conversation volleyed across narrow pathways, flanked by contrasting colored goods. Deeper into the market, as Joshua led her through with a firm grip on her hand, the smell of fish, chicken, beef, and pork hanging from hooks assaulted the senses. The space seemed unending. One corridor only led to another, the changing landscape of the food like the switch of a neighborhood mid-jog in DC.

  It was the most magnificent thing Diana had experienced. It was loud and overwhelming, true, but it was alive. Laughter rang out among the exchange of goods, and storytelling mixed with negotiation.

  They spilled out into a square, where the smell of fried foods filled the air. They passed a cart grilling meat on a stick, another vendor pan-frying nuts. A woman poured water in a clear dispenser for juice. Another dipped quail eggs into batter before tossing them into a vat of oil. All of it tempted Diana, whose salivary glands were on overload.

  “What do you feel like having?” Joshua asked.

  “Anything.” Diana’s tummy growled. “One of everything?”

  “That’s what I like to hear.” He let go of her hand and spoke to one vendor after another, then gestured. “Lunch is almost served. Let’s go find someplace to sit.”

  “So, what do you think?” Joshua asked later, after a quick negotiation with a vegetable vendor for two plastic chairs. “Honestly.”

  She took a second to think about it. “Honestly? Freaking chaotic. But fun. I could get lost in here. And my mother would have a field day with all of this. We’ll need to bring her.”

  He bit into the fried calamari on the stick. “Would you give me five stars?” Seeing her confusion, he said. “On your restaurant app, would you give me five stars?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him before dipping dried fish into vinegar sauce and shrugged.

  “Seriously? I even finagled chairs.” He turned to the vendor, behind his vegetables. “Manong—five stars, po?”

  The older man nodded, smiling in cahoots. “Five stars.”

  She laughed. “Fine. Four and a half stars.”

  He leaned into her ear and whispered, “I think I know exactly what I can do to round up that last star. The question is: How much time will you give me?”

  She shivered at the suggestion, until—with the sudden clarity—the answer to his question descended upon her. “Forty-eight hours.”

  “Two days.” His voice lost its gravelly tone.

  “Yeah.” Her emotions had been a vast spectrum since her arrival, but for the first time since arriving, she wanted to stay longer. She hadn’t seen enough; she hadn’t learned enough. There was more to explore with Joshua. But this wasn’t real life. “I have a house that’s being renovated. I have a job.”

  She thought of her mother, who didn’t have the same obligations. Margo, who always seemed to have a choice. And not for the first time, she wished she had the same freedom.

  Joshua handed her a bottled water, thank goodness, in time to clear the lump that had formed in her throat. “Can you extend your trip?”

  “Not really.” She halted, then dove into it headlong: what happened that night in the emergency room, her decision, and the aftermath.

  He listened to her patiently, nodding, then asked. “Would you ever return here? To the Philippines. To visit,” he quickly added. “There’s so much family you haven’t met yet. We have a whole contingent in Leyte, my lola’s family.”

  “Yes, of course, when time permits,” she reassured, and yet, something tugged at her between the lines of his question. But if he wasn’t ready to talk about it—them—then she wouldn’t, either. Their situation was early. It was casual, right? “How about you? Do you come to the US ever?”

  “I usually visit once a year. These days, someone is always getting married, having kids that need a godfather. But the hotel—and Colette will need my help with the restaurant after this baby comes. And, of course, there’s Lola. When she passes, it’s me and Colette left to run the business. If I visited, I wouldn’t be able to stay for too long. This is my home.”

  Diana understood; she empathized. In fact, she sympathized. And from the resigned expression on Joshua’s face, she knew he was thinking the same thing, too—it could never be, no matter how she wished for it.

  Marysville, California

  July 15, 1944

  Dear Antonio,

  I’m still not feeling well. Everything smells bad, and my stomach is suffering for it. One minute I’m so hungry I can eat everything on the table, and then the next minute, I recoil at the idea of food. I have also been oversleeping. I was late to Mrs. Lawley’s three times this week because my body feels so heavy it’s like I’ve been weighed down by bricks. Even my father, who cares for no one but himself, h
as shown concern.

  I believe I am pregnant, my love. Three months pregnant. No, I haven’t seen a doctor yet, and I can’t, not until I have a plan. But I have all the signs. And I can’t imagine what else could make my body feel this way, like it is not my own. It’s like I’m asleep and awake all at once.

  I have told Joy. I had to tell someone. Joy’s sister, who has had two babies, says that I will be showing in about two months, that I won’t be able to hide it even if I tried.

  I write this letter through tears because I’m not sure what I should do. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be happy or upset. I’m not sure if I should scream with fear or with joy. This baby is half you and half me. It’s as if, finally, the world is acknowledging that we do exist, that you aren’t a figment of my imagination. That our love means something.

  Joy is worried. She has brought up many scenarios where I have imagined the worst. No one will want us. Marysville is against this—us, this baby. Not to mention the law.

  Please don’t be angry with me, or regret what we did. I can’t bear it if you had any doubts or thought that you and I and this baby were mistakes. Joy thinks I am naive, and maybe I am, but what I know is this: I love you, and I love this baby despite how scared I am. I’m going to sit here, and I’m going to make a plan, and I’m going to write you and tell you about it, all right?

  Please take care of yourself. Please keep yourself safe. At every sunset, I will pray to the heavens above for the end of this war and for you to come back to me.

  I love you,

  Leora

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Flora’s directions in mind, Margo entered the house hidden behind the trees in the backyard. It was just as Diana had described it, but Margo didn’t slow down to appreciate the details. She had one thing to retrieve and her focus was solely on that. With Edna taking the lead, opening the home with a key on a key ring Flora had retrieved from her bedside table drawer, Margo followed her through the tiny home, to a closet in the home office.

  “No one has been in this closet for a long time.” Edna flipped to another key and stuck it in the doorknob. The lock clacked, and the door popped open. “There’s a light up above. I have to go back to the house. Will you be okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you,” Margo said, already moving past her and pulling the chain. When the light flickered on, she inhaled a slow, shallow breath.

  This room was a pack rat’s dream. Books upon books burgeoned from the built-in cabinets, with trinkets poised on stacks of paper and newspaper clippings. Rocks, big and little, from—Margo could only assume—places Antonio found interesting, were piled in the corners.

  “So this is where I get it from,” she mused. All at once, she felt at home in this space. Her fingers skimmed a dusty shelf; she fingered the beads of a plastic army-green rosary hanging from a nail on the wall.

  The sight of all of it put a smile on her face for the first time since Flora revealed that Antonio had dictated the letter. She had been ready to blame Flora; she had also been ready to forgive her, but how could she forgive someone who was already dead?

  But Margo pushed all that aside for now. There would be days, weeks, and months to process. Right now, more pressing issues remained.

  When Flora had informed Margo of her father’s will, Margo had wanted proof. The idea of taking on the family’s properties was outrageous and far-fetched. And if the man had known there was a possibility she existed, why hadn’t he tried to find her?

  According to Flora, her father had two copies of his will: one kept by his lawyers in a separate safe, another in a brown leather-bound folder in this closet.

  Margo’s phone buzzed in her pocket. When she looked, more text notifications flashed on the screen. But she didn’t want anything to distract her. If this had been last week, she would have taken a picture of this closet and then slumped into a chair and spent too much time composing a message to accompany it.

  Now, she had neither the time nor the emotional bandwidth to do it. As she looked for the folder through the stacks of papers and books packed in the shelves and corners, the gravity of what she was doing caught up to her. She was in her dead father’s office closet. Her hands shook; to ground herself, she whispered her instructions. “Leather-bound portfolio. Leather-bound portfolio.”

  Then she caught sight of something brown and shiny. She touched the smooth spine.

  “This is it,” she whispered.

  She stepped out of the closet and sat in the office chair that looked out to the backyard, where the sun had begun to descend, casting an orange hue in the sky. It dawned on her then—the home’s name now made perfect sense. Sunset Corner. This seat Margo had taken, this view, was Sunset Corner.

  She untied the straps of the portfolio, fanned it open, and lifted a stapled document.

  The legalese was relentless. Margo was an artist and not a scientist or a lawyer for a reason—her eyes glossed over technical terms like skates on ice. She scanned down, turned pages, until she found the words Las Cruces and then backtracked to the beginning of the section. She read aloud: “ ‘I hereby bequeath the ownership and management of the Cruz Estate to Flora Cruz until her death or until she determines she is unable. Thereafter, the eldest descendant will inherit the Cruz Estate. The Cruz Estate consists of Las Cruces Hotel, Sunset Corner, and all its assets. Forthcoming owners will have authoritative control and input in the hotel’s board of directors.’ ”

  Her chest tightened with the start of tears as emotions slammed against her. Anger at her father, then wonder as to how this development would play out. How would this new truth fit into her current life? What part of herself would she have to give up for this legacy? Would Diana miss her if she moved?

  The thought came so suddenly that she dropped the stapled papers in her hand. Not once had she contemplated leaving her daughter’s side permanently, and vice versa. Home base had always been with or near one another, in Old Town Alexandria. But this will might change that.

  * * *

  Margo buried herself in words for the next few hours: in the will, in newspaper clippings her father saved that marked the passage of time, in the titles of the books he kept, in the annotated margins. She cataloged the way he grouped his memorabilia. Rocks in one place, marked by a black marker for the date, receipts in a wooden box. Photos, sepia with time, interspersed throughout. Soon, night truly fell.

  But aside from the will, there were no other hints of her mother, of their love and relationship. Margo searched for clues in all the ways readers search for Easter eggs in their favorite authors’ books. But it was to no avail. After sorting through another receipt, she slumped against the desk chair.

  It was as if, for her father, Margo’s life had been written in chalk, then wiped away with one fell swoop.

  “Tita Margo?” Colette’s voice echoed through the house. While it had been only a few hours, it felt like days had passed. Margo sat up in her chair and took stock of the state of the office, now littered with items she’d examined.

  “In the office!” she called back.

  Several sets of footsteps followed, and Colette appeared at the doorway. Her hair was slightly askew, but she bore a sad smile, probably in response to Margo’s state of being. “Hi.”

  “How are you? How was your nap?”

  “Okay.” Her eyes bounced around the room. “You haven’t been answering your texts.”

  “Sorry, I put it on silent. I was looking for …” But Margo couldn’t pin down the right word. Instead, she shrugged.

  “I have people here to see you.”

  Margo shook her head, not understanding. “Oh?”

  Colette stepped aside, and two figures came into the room. At first, they were so out of place that Margo didn’t recognize the man and woman. Her mind was so mired in the past, in simply catching up on decades of denial and days of shock. But here were her dearest friends. Cameron and Roberta. Handsome, steady Cameron in his polo and shorts, and travel-weary but pe
rfectly made-up Roberta. Her two bookends. She stood, and they rushed toward her.

  “Oh my God, what?” was all Margo could say, tears streaming down her cheeks. “How did you know?”

  “I gave you twenty-four hours after I knew your flight landed to contact us, but you didn’t make contact. You didn’t text us. And we weren’t going to let you get away with it,” Roberta said, and slapped at her gently. “You’re lucky I love you or else I would disown you. Did you expect us to sit there in LA and go on with our normal lives when you didn’t text or post or anything?” She frowned. “I’m mad at you still, so this is not over.” She hugged Margo again. When she pulled back, her eyes were as wide as saucers. “What is all this stuff?”

  “I have a lot to catch you up on.” Margo patted her face free of tears as Roberta rifled through the papers. She looked up at Cameron, who was a sight for sore eyes. Seeing him soothed some of her ache, and in her relief she felt no awkwardness between them.

  He wrapped his arms around her, and she sank into his hold. She’d needed someone to hug her, to hold her, and for a moment she felt protected and secure.

  “I’m just so glad you’re okay,” he said.

  “How did you guys even find me?”

  “C’mon now, you’re talking to me. I can work the Google.” His lips crooked up into a half smile. “And, my memory is still on point.”

  “But your plans …”

  “Our plans.”

  “That’s right, old lady, where you go, we go. Besides, I couldn’t stand being around Cam with his sad face,” Roberta yelled from the closet. “Just kiss her again already. I’m not looking this time!”

  “Oh, Bert.” Cameron shut his eyes slowly and shook his head.

  From the desk chair, Colette giggled, her fingers on her lips.

  When he opened his eyes again, he stared intently into Margo’s eyes, all trace of his usual whimsy gone. He took both of her hands in his, squeezed them gently. “I don’t want to have to admit when Bert’s right, but when we kissed at the airport, and then you left? It tore me apart, Margo. It dawned on me that we’ve known each other all of our lives, and that was only our first kiss. You and I know that time can be a jerk, and I don’t want to waste any more of it.”