America Is Not the Heart

by Elaine Castillo

  Pol offered to give Hero pocket money to clean the house. You can go to the movies more, he reasoned. She hadn’t gone to the movies once since arriving in Milpitas, and it hadn’t occurred to her that she should start. Hero hadn’t even considered that they might pay her for the work; it was the least she could do in return for everything they’d already done for her.

  So during the day, she cleaned. She thought that after one week she’d run out of things to clean, never having cleaned a house before, but she found out how wrong she was after three days. There was never any end to cleaning, especially in the kitchen, where the family spent most of their time. Even with Paz and Pol only cooking from time to time, and Gloria only occasionally using the kitchen herself—most of the time Gloria brought already cooked food to the house—the floor needed constant mopping to prevent it from looking dingy and greasy.

  During one of those cleaning sessions, Hero entered Paz and Pol’s bedroom for the first time, where in fact, Roni also slept. Even though one of the bedrooms in the house was ostensibly for Roni, Hero had soon noticed that Roni never slept in it, never even went inside. On rare occasions, she did her homework in that room, especially late at night when it was too cold in the kitchen or the living room, or she was in one of her moods and wanted to be alone; but when it came time to sleep, she always gathered herself together and slinked off to the master bedroom.

  Hero had wanted her own room when she was even younger than Roni, a space of her own to retreat to. There had always been more than enough space, both in the De Vera home and in the nearby villa Hamin moved them to later, just before she entered high school, just as he was beginning his political career. A councilman should have his own home, he thought, even if he laid claim to the De Vera name. The minute Hero asked for her own room, she got it. She’d never considered the possibility of sleeping in the same room as her parents. She couldn’t imagine not having enough space, like in Paz and Pol’s first apartment; equally, she couldn’t imagine having the space and not being able to get used to it. Not being able to stand the distance. She couldn’t imagine even wanting that kind of intimacy, what having it might feel like.

  Now Hero saw that the master bedroom, though larger than the bedroom Paz and Pol had given to her, wasn’t all that deserving of its name. Though the reason why the room seemed so small was also because there were actually two beds in the room, pressed up against each other to form, essentially, one large super-bed. One of the beds was queen-sized; Pol and Paz’s, Hero guessed. The other bed, closest to the window, was smaller, double-sized perhaps. When Hero pulled the fitted sheets back so she could wash them, she saw little reddish-brown pinpricks, which at first she thought was dirt, but when dusting it off did nothing, she leaned in closer and realized that they were traces of blood, there on the bed where in the middle of the night Roni might have unconsciously scratched an arm, or the back of a knee, or a neck.

  Hero stripped the dirty sheets from the bed, carried them down to the garage, put them in the washing machine. When they were finished washing, she put them in the dryer. She moved like an automaton, staring at the machines as they rumbled and chimed. When the sheets were done, she went back upstairs to redo the two beds. Hero worked quickly, so that the bed was still body-warm when she was done. The tiny blood stains wouldn’t wash out of the sheets; they must have been there for years already.

  Every day when Hero finished cleaning, the joints in her hands sore, she would think that she’d have a minute to herself, get to catch another look at one of the American soap operas she’d unwittingly gotten caught up in after starting a tradition of turning on the television while she vacuumed—then she’d look at the clock on the microwave in the kitchen and realize it was time to pick Roni up from school.

  She’d never known days as short as the ones in California; in Vigan, she remembered days that would never end, boredom while waiting for the next meal, lonely hours ticked away reading magazines. Pol noticed that she didn’t want to read books anymore, and without asking about it, he said she was welcome to the issues of Time and Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report scattered around the house. Like a good subscriber, he read each week’s news promptly, but kept the old issues around, especially for Roni, who liked to look through them. Sometimes there would be an American gossip magazine that Hero would flip through, recognizing nobody; those were bought by Paz and read, Hero suspected, in the middle of the night.

  Her own room was easy to keep clean because there was so little in it. The things Hero brought to Milpitas: A pack of Dunhill cigarettes, the foil still on it. Clothes Tita Soly gave her; some of them borrowed, some of them new, most of them oversized. A bottle of Tabac cologne. A bootleg cassette tape of Talk Talk’s The Party’s Over, bought on Recto Avenue after she’d been living with Tita Soly in Manila for a year, the first time she’d left the house on her own. Bought for the cover and the title, then listened to over and over and over. A cassette tape of songs recorded on the radio in Soly’s kitchen: New Order, Ultravox, Go West, Fiction Factory, Friends Again. WXB 102.7 FM, The Station That Dares to Be Different. A packet of papers about thumb exercises.

  No pictures, no letters, no keepsakes or heirlooms. Nothing from her parents. A few weeks after arriving in Milpitas, when there was nothing left to unpack, nothing left to busy her hurt hands with, nothing left to do but start trying to feel at home, Hero put everything but the clothes back in the suitcase under the bed and left them there.

  * * *

  Melba called the house one afternoon, when Hero had just brought Roni back from school. Hi, is this Pacita?

  No, sorry, this is her niece. May I take a message?

  It’s Melba, you remember? You brought Roni to my house in Hayward—

  Oh—yes, yes. Kumusta po kayo?

  Mabuti, mabuti. I’m just calling because I think I gave you the wrong number, last time. You know the old lady I told you about, in San Jose? I was wrong, they live in Milpitas.

  Milpitas? Hero repeated. We live in Milpitas.

  That’s what I thought! Melba crowed. So it’ll be really convenient for you guys. I’m gonna give you the phone number, okay? And you give it to Atse Pacita. Do you have a pen and paper?

  Uh—yes—no, hold on, I’ll get something. Roni? Roni? Can I borrow a pen and paper?

  Roni looked up from the kitchen table where she was doing her homework. She tore a page out of her notebook and gave it to Hero, along with the pencil in her hands.

  Hello? Yes? I have a pencil now.

  Okay. The number is 408—

  Hero wrote the number down, repeating each digit after Melba. Then the name of the older woman. Adela Cabugao.

  When Paz called the number, Adela’s daughter answered, and when Paz said who she was and what she was calling for, the daughter said, loud enough so that it echoed in the kitchen where Paz was sitting,

  Pacita? Pacita Edades? Si Rhea ’to—

  Rhea! Paz cried out.

  It turned out Adela Cabugao was the mother of a former coworker of Paz’s, back at San Jose Medical, and then at the nursing home. They’d lost touch after Rhea had started working at Kaiser.

  It was Melba De La Cruz who gave us your number, Paz said.

  Rhea made a sound that was like her voice, shrugging. She said Melba was nice, but didn’t really know what she was doing, and she had the bad habit of thinking every illness was the result of a jealousy-fueled hex. She means well, she allowed. So anong nangyari sa Roni? She’s sick?

  Very sick, Paz said, her voice somber. Can Lola Adela help?

  Bring her in, Rhea said. She gave Paz the address of the restaurant, which was where Adela and her husband usually spent their days. Just come in any afternoon, it’s fine, you don’t need to make an appointment or anything. She’s usually available from two o’clock onward. Paz wrote the address down, saying thank you a few times in the process.

  My daughter works
at the Vietnamese salon next door to the restaurant, Rhea said. You remember Rosalyn?

  Rosalyn! Paz exclaimed. I only met her once, when she was, oh, a kid. How old is Rosalyn now?

  Twenty-six. Can you believe that? Still no boyfriend.

  Twenty-six, wow, dalaga na.

  But still no boyfriend. She broke up with Jaime. You remember Jaime?

  Ah—mm—

  I thought they were gonna get married. And you know JR? He’s in high school already.

  No kidding, wow. Lalaki siya.

  He’s so moody, Rhea laughed. Alam mo. Teenagers. Teka, how old is Roni now?

  Seven years old, Paz said, hesitating.

  I still remember when she was a baby, diyos ko. Did you do the fiesta for the seventh?

  Paz went silent. Her face shuttered. Hero didn’t know that the fiesta was something Paz had avoided thinking about: the lucky seventh birthday of any Filipino child, and the traditional big party that had to commemorate it. Paz wasn’t thinking about it; she wasn’t thinking about it. And when Roni’s seventh birthday came and went and it was all too late, she wasn’t thinking about it. They hadn’t saved enough money to throw a big party by her seventh, anyway, so it was over, she wasn’t thinking about it. Roni’s eighth birthday was coming up in mid-February, not that many months away, and even though Paz wasn’t thinking about it, she had come up with an idea, which was that she could throw Roni a double birthday, for both her seventh and eighth. Eight was a lucky number, too, she’d already reasoned to Pol.

  So Paz kept on saving up for it, this party that should have already happened, without admitting to herself that it was what she was saving up for. There were enough things she had to save up for, so it was easy to say, This is for Carmen’s lawyer, or This is for my mother, or This is for Rufina’s petition, or This is for buying a used car for Nimang. If there was a soft, sirenalike voice in her that hummed, And this is for Roni’s seventh-eighth birthday—she made sure to shut that voice up for its insolence, afraid that even thinking the thought would be punishable. Roni was alive past seven years old, that had to be enough; why tempt fate? But Paz couldn’t put the idea of the party away.

  On the phone to Rhea, she was half honest. Oh, she didn’t want one for her seventh, kasi eh. We’re thinking of throwing her a big fiesta for her eighth, na lang.

  Rhea laughed. You need someone to cater?

  * * *

  Hero heard Paz and Pol fight for the first time, over the faith healers. Pol had long declared them a waste of time that would only continue to drain Roni’s already erratic energy. It was cruel to drag her up and down every Filipino house in the Bay Area, subjecting her to gossips and charlatans. All for your superstitions, he said, the English word pointed and unsparing.

  Paz didn’t have a counterargument. On the way to work, she slammed every door she met. She worked her normal sixteen hour days, occasionally even worked a twenty-four-hour shift, and when she came back home at night, she slept on the couch.

  For the next week, Paz didn’t speak to Pol, though several times Hero saw Pol lingering in the doorway of the bathroom or the entrance of the kitchen, any room Paz was in, waiting for his wife to acknowledge his presence. Pol didn’t seem fazed; her recalcitrance, that tigas ng ulo spirit, seemed to be one of the qualities that had attracted him to Paz in the first place. Paz only faltered when she and Hero were alone; she didn’t seem sure whether or not she should include Hero in her freeze-out.

  During those tight-lipped days Hero began to notice a peculiar slackening of the entire left side of Paz’s face, subtle at first and then more serious as the week went on, until Hero came home with Roni in tow, just after school was over, to find Pol and Paz in the kitchen. Paz was sitting still at the kitchen table as Pol hovered over her, gently squeezing eyedrops into her left eye.

  When he was done, Paz turned to face Hero and Roni, coming in from the garage. Hero nearly ran into Roni, who’d frozen in place at the sight of her mother. The left side of Paz’s face was paralyzed, the weight of her drooping cheek pulling down the raw pink socket of her left eye, leaving it dry and bloodshot.

  Huwag kang matakot, anak, Paz hurried to say to Roni through the pliant side of her mouth. Don’t be scared. It’s the same as before. It’ll go away in a few days.

  Pol didn’t say anything, just replaced the cap on the bottle and took up a pack of tablets.

  Roni stared at her mother, her entire body still. Hero moved around her, stepping fully into the kitchen, and took stock of the bottle of artificial tears, the pack of prednisone tablets.

  Bell’s palsy, Pol said, quiet.

  Hero nodded. She was distantly familiar with it as a common side effect of the job, more common in nurses, nursing assistants, and ambulance workers than in doctors. Paz had a hand lifted to her chin, catching and wiping at a stream of drool from the left side of her mouth with her right hand. Her left arm was slack on her lap. Pol took up a paper towel and wiped at her chin.

  That night, before Paz could make her bed on the couch, Hero saw Pol intercept her, taking up the extra pillow and blanket Paz had left there into his arms.

  Even in her state, Paz managed to look stubborn. She sat down on the couch, prim, and stared up at Pol. Her sagging eye rebuked him.

  Mahal, Pol tried. Still no movement.

  Finally, Pol relented: If Roni says it’s okay, then—okay. Let her go to the faith healers again next week. If she says it’s okay.

  Paz stood without breaking their gaze. Pol was reaching for her hand, knowing he’d said the magic words. On their way up the stairs, he kept a steadying hand on her left elbow, though it seemed as though feeling had already come back into her arm, that she’d been better for hours.

  * * *

  On the day Hero was supposed to take Roni to see Adela Cabugao, she didn’t show up with the rest of her class after school. Hero’s shoulders sank.

  Hero got out of the car, bracing herself to drag the girl out of yet another fight. As she began to walk toward the yard where the fights usually took place, however, a white woman in a blue blouse with a Peter Pan collar approached her, shielding her eyes from the sun. Excuse me? Are you Ms. De Vera? Roni’s cousin? You’re here to pick her up?

  Hero froze. Uh, yes? I’m Hero—nima?

  I’m Mrs. Waverley, Roni’s teacher. Roni’s in detention right now. She’ll be out in an hour. She may be suspended for the rest of the week. Will Roni’s parents be home this evening? I’ll need to speak with them personally.

  Hero found English words slow to come, prickly and heavy on her tongue. She tried her best. Detention? For an hour? What did she do?

  Mrs. Waverly crossed her arms. I think it’s best if I speak with her parents directly. Will they be available this evening?

  Yes, Hero said, knowing at least Pol would be around before his shift. Yes, her father will be available.

  Good, Mrs. Waverly said. She had brown hair she’d blow-dried then hairsprayed into a wavy bob, falling just at her chin. It made her look like one of the soap opera stars Hero sometimes saw in the afternoon, but much less successfully. She smelled strongly of perfume, something not all that dissimilar to something Hero remembered the De Vera women wearing, like No. 5 but with the volume turned up to a screech, creating a three-foot radius around the woman’s body, a force field of scent. Hero took a step back in self-defense.

  Roni will be out in an hour, the woman repeated more slowly, as if she thought Hero might not have understood the first time.

  When Roni finally appeared in the parking lot, at the end of the hour, there were extra-wide Band-Aids on both of her knees. Hero was leaning against the hood of the car, which had long gone cool. Roni’s hair had been taken out of its ponytail; she was in the middle of scraping it back into the elastic. When her hands were free, she waved. She looked perfectly at ease, even cheerful.

  When the girl was close
enough, Hero pushed herself off the car, bent down to take a look at Roni’s knees. On the way there, she checked the rest of her; her face didn’t have any new scratches on it, her arms didn’t either. The same eczema scars, weeping a bit but that was normal.

  What happened to your knees?

  Roni grinned. That was when Hero saw it: one of her front teeth, a baby tooth next to the left canine, had been knocked clean out.

  What—anía—what the hell happened to your teeth! Hero was too shocked to make it sound like a question.

  Roni opened her mouth to explain, but then started laughing, and couldn’t stop. She laughed and laughed, head tilted back, gappy teeth exposed, leathery lips on the verge of splitting with the strain of it.

  I—huhhuhhuh—I—huhhuh—

  Hero started to smile helplessly, just as a reflex, like yawning after seeing someone else yawn.

  Uhhhhhhh, Roni began, still laughing, her eyes filmy-wet with tears. I started a war!

  Hero blinked at her. A war? What—

  Then she stopped. Shook her head.

  Get in the car. I’m taking you to your appointment. Explain on the way.

  Roni was practically dancing to the passenger door. Mrs. Waverly’s gonna call home about it aaaaaanyway. I’m not coming to school tomorrow—!

  Get. Hero exhaled, tired all of a sudden. Get in the car.

  * * *

  Okay, so what happened was—huhhuhhuhhuh—that was Roni, manic in her triumph—what happened was, a week ago, Vincent said girls aren’t as strong as boys, right? He said it during morning recess. He said, girls aren’t as strong as boys, and so, I said, yeah, they were—

  What Roni actually said, according to the same boy, and which Mrs. Waverly relayed to Pol later that evening on the phone, cordially leaving out some of the nuance in her retelling, was: GIRLS ARE TOO AS STRONG AS BOYS!!! I’LL FUCKING CUT YOU UP!!! I’LL FUCKING CUT YOUR TITI OFF!!!