Hero skimmed through the wrinkled pages, the facts she already knew. University of Santo Tomás for his medical degree. V. Luna General Hospital and National Orthopedic Hospital for his internships. She turned a page then let in an abrupt breath. A single page, not salmon-colored. A photocopy of an old, old document.
Be it known that Apolonio Chua De Vera, having passed the examination given by the Board of Medical Examiners and having complied with all other requirements of the law regulating the practice of Medicine and Surgery in the Philippines, is hereby admitted to practice as a PHYSICIAN, is registered as such and empowered to assume such title by and under the authority of the Republic of the Philippines.
It was Pol’s certificate confirming that he’d passed the board; that he’d become a surgeon. He must have needed to show it, to apply for a medical license in California. That must have been one of the official documents that he’d been receiving from the Philippines, all those months ago.
In the upper right-hand corner was a grainy picture of Pol. Not only had Hero never seen the picture before, but she had never seen this face before: young, thick-lipped and thick-eyebrowed, shiny cheeks, in a bow tie, smiling vaguely, gaze turned slightly rightward, reticent. The gothic letters, spelling out the words Granted in accordance with the provisions of Republic Act No. 546, under the seal of this board at Manila, Philippines, this 30th of January, Anno Domini nineteen hundred and fifty-six, with the fifty-six handwritten.
In this older photo, Pol looked—Hero knew it with a bolt of clarity so fierce she thought her chest would crack from it—just like her. She felt that reticent smile on her own face, the light bouncing off the high apples of her cheeks, her own thick De Vera lips, her own thick De Vera eyebrows with the same centuries-old cowlick. A kid in his first lifetime. The photograph was signed; here, again, the signature was the one Hero had always known. Suddenly, she was sure that this was the first time Pol had ever officially used it.
Hero glanced from the photo of young Pol to older Pol. She put both back into the trash.
Then, before she’d even pulled her hands back, before she’d even really let the photos go, she took everything out again. She took her time wiping the pages clean with a paper towel. She brought everything back up to her room, where she stored the papers with the old clothes, the unused bottle of Tabac cologne, the thumb exercises.
* * *
Toward the beginning of September, Paz went to the airport to pick Pol and Roni up, as scheduled.
Hero was still at work at the restaurant, thinking, unusually, about two things: her birthday and the thumb exercises. The year after a death, you weren’t supposed to give or receive gifts; you weren’t supposed to celebrate birthdays or anniversaries at all. But Rosalyn had mentioned wanting to do something for Hero’s birthday, just to get her mind off of Boy, and Hero was considering whether or not she should let her. They hadn’t done anything for Rosalyn’s birthday that year, as Boy had been buried only a couple of weeks earlier, and Rosalyn had seemed angry, almost, at the prospect of her own birthday.
On the subject of the thumb exercises, it was just the sight of them when she was putting away Pol’s documents that had planted the seed in her mind. She hadn’t thought about them for months, but now the reminder of them, underneath her bed, pecked at her.
When she got back home, she was still thinking about it, was ready to go back upstairs and retrieve the exercises, maybe even do some that night. But Paz was in the kitchen, alone, her shoes still on.
Where’s—Hero said. At the look on Paz’s face, she stopped. Pol and Roni hadn’t come back. They didn’t come back that month. Or the next. Or the next.
America Isn’t the Heart
By October, Hero new enough not to ask the question. Paz worked sixteen-hour days, sometimes twenty-four-hour days, and she never took time off anymore. Sometimes Hero would hear the garage door open at midnight and then take a long time to close, knowing that Paz was still sitting in her car, the engine still running, as if only her body had come back from work; the rest of her still limping its way down 237, grasping for flesh.
Where’s Roni. Hero had asked it, the day Roni and Pol were supposed to come back. A week later, she’d still been brave enough to ask it again, when she ran into Paz in the kitchen, looking at a stack of papers, registration for Roni’s new school, a list of school supplies. Paz was making checks and notes along the list; things she had, things she could get, where she could get them.
Is she coming back—that was how Hero had put it, the second time.
Oo naman, Paz said, still staring at the papers, brows low and voice high. Of course. If not now, then. Pol will bring her back to visit for Christmas. This year, maybe. Or next. Or I can go and see her.
Hero stared at the figure Paz made, hands dry from overwashing, not a tremor in them. Bring her back for Christmas? To visit? Is she—what about school? What about—
Then she stopped, trying to gather herself, searching for the right words, finding all the right words gone, having to make do with what she had.
She lives here, Hero said at last.
Paz put the papers down. Pol wants to practice again.
Can’t he practice here? What happened to his application for a medical license in California?
Paz whipped her head around to face Hero. You knew about that?
I saw the forms. I saw he was receiving documents from the Philippines.
Paz’s shoulders lowered. Sixty-two na siya, she said quietly. He would have to be a first-year intern, do everything all over again. Akala niya, his credentials would make him different from other immigrants. I told him that’s not how it works here. Siguro he never submitted the forms. He wants to go back home. Practice there.
He’ll still be a sixty-two-year-old doctor in the Philippines, too. He hasn’t practiced for ten years. Who would hire him?
The director of Lorma Medical Center in La Union has been offering him a post there since before Roni was born.
At the mention of Roni’s name, Paz’s face twisted. She looked back down at the list of school supplies in front of her. Then she said,
He’ll bring her back sometimes. He wouldn’t—Paz stopped, seeming to realize she didn’t have a firm enough handle on what Pol would or wouldn’t do.
He’ll bring her back sometimes, she said finally. And I can visit, too, when I’m off.
Sometimes, Hero repeated.
Paz’s small hand quavered, then clenched.
Hero said, You can’t let him do this.
Paz was still looking down at the list. She underlined SET OF 24 CRAYONS (CRAYOLA OR SIMILAR) and put a question mark next to it, then wrote the words Longs Drugs or Walgreens?
You have rights. You’re her mother.
Paz lifted her gaze, meeting Hero’s. Hero saw that her cheek was twitching slightly, not from laughter or suppressed tears. It was a nerve twitch; the start of the palsy.
I know your family, Nimang, Paz said calmly. Do you?
Hero had never even felt ambivalence toward Pol, never in her life. She’d only ever known what it felt like to love him, to keep the minor altar of admiration for him in her heart well cleaned, its flowers rotless and blooming. What she hadn’t known was that her love was a room, cavernous, and hate could enter there, too; curl up in the same bed, blanketed and sleep-warm. She looked into Paz’s face and saw in it not defeat, not anger, not even the hate Hero could feel buzzing in her hands, scraping at her chest—but acceptance. Acceptance and something worse: confirmation. Paz hadn’t been blindsided. I know your family, Nimang. Paz had never expected to keep Roni forever.
Do you? Paz repeated.
Yes, Hero answered, no strength in the word.
Then huwag kang makipag-usap sa akin tungkol sa mga rights. Don’t talk to me about rights. You know the minute they stepped off the plane in Manila, nawala ang rights ko. My rights were
gone.
Hero didn’t speak. At Hero’s silence, Paz scoffed and turned back to the list of school supplies and picked her pen up again. She underlined the words NUMBER 2 PENCILS.
* * *
The first couple of months after Boy’s death, Adela hadn’t asked for any help, had done all the cooking and the gardening, but one night not long after Roni had been taken, Rosalyn had found Adela falling asleep, still standing, about to collapse into a boiling pot of sinigang.
After that, Adela was only allowed to work from morning to evening at the restaurant four days out of the week, not six. JR and Rosalyn took over the cooking in the evening, and the cooking for the next morning; they alternated who took over the garden. Rosalyn was still doing makeup on the side, but she’d quit working at the salon to help out at the restaurant. Mai said she could come back at any time, but both of them knew Rosalyn wouldn’t be coming soon.
The atmosphere in the restaurant had changed, with Rosalyn at its helm; Hero would have thought that Rosalyn would be a natural successor to her grandparents’ legacy, vivacious and welcoming, but the pressure of being the matron in the room seemed to make Rosalyn crumble, and her vivacity came off as overbearing and forced. Hero hadn’t realized how much of the soothing pleasure of being in the restaurant simply came down to Adela and Boy’s particular brand of calm, nonjudgmental openness, or how difficult that was to re-create with one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle missing. Adela took a break from her faith healing, though people still came to the restaurant looking for her.
JR elected not to go to college, and started working as a security guard along with Jaime. Rosalyn and JR were the ones who now took care of all the catering jobs that were left to fulfill. Jaime sometimes showed up when Hero was leaving for the day, to help wash dishes or sweep up the floor with JR.
At first, Hero didn’t notice that she wasn’t being asked to help on the catering jobs. It was only toward the beginning of one workday, when Rosalyn and JR were just about to leave to drop food off at a big Couples for Christ fund-raiser, that Hero got the sense that something was off. Rosalyn and JR were in the kitchen, stacking trays of food that Adela had made the night before, and preparing to load them into the van. There weren’t any customers in the restaurant yet.
I’ll help you carry those, Hero said as Rosalyn was on her way out with a stack of three trays of pancit.
No, it’s fine, Rosalyn said without looking at her, continuing out the door, passing JR, who was coming back for his second trip.
I can help, Hero said to him.
JR frowned. Uh, Ate Rosalyn said that you shouldn’t—
What?
Rosalyn came back into the restaurant empty-handed. JR, where’s the doorstop, the door keeps banging—
I can help, Hero said to Rosalyn. Without waiting for an answer, she went to the kitchen, where the rest of the trays of food were waiting. She heard Rosalyn mutter something and chase after her.
We’re fine, we’re good—
You’ll be here all morning and the fund-raiser starts at nine.
Rosalyn stood next to her in the kitchen and surveyed the remaining trays, over a dozen. She stacked three trays flat on top of each other and set them aside. She picked up one tray of puto, then turned to Hero.
Hold out your arms, Rosalyn said, indicating how she wanted Hero to do it, forearms flat. Hero did, and Rosalyn put the tray down, then turned to pick up the three she’d put aside. Go on ahead of me, she said, her back still facing Hero.
I can take more than one tray, Hero said flatly.
Rosalyn didn’t say anything, but after a moment she took another tray and put it down gingerly on Hero’s forearms. Then she stacked a fourth tray onto her own three, and shouldered past Hero to make her way to the van outside.
Out in the parking lot, Rosalyn put her trays down in the open backseat, and turned around immediately to take the two trays out of Hero’s arms. Hero pulled back from her and instead placed each tray down on the floor of the van herself, slowly.
I can take more than two trays, she said again, not quite getting angry, not yet.
Rosalyn shrank. Look—
Put me to work. I’m not a child.
Hero had to choose her words precisely, coldly, beyond anger, or she was going to get something worse than sympathy, which she didn’t want and had never needed; something even worse than pity, which she was perfectly fine with in principle, at least when it was wholehearted, the grip of it unforgiving and final, the way Lulay’s lifelong pity and scorn had given her no quarter, held her like a vow.
Rosalyn attempted, I’m just thinking about your hands, you don’t have to—
If you don’t need my help then don’t accept it when I offer, Hero said, holding Rosalyn’s gaze. But don’t treat me like I’m useless.
The lines between Rosalyn’s brows were so deep they formed a number eleven. Hero opened her mouth to say it again, but Rosalyn closed her eyes and bit out an, Okay. Fine. Okay.
Okay, Hero clipped out, walking away fast before Rosalyn could change her mind or ruin it with an apology she obviously didn’t want to give and Hero didn’t want to receive. Rosalyn hurried to catch up, and when they reached the kitchen, she got to the remaining trays first, reaching out and grabbing hold of their edges faster than Hero could. There were only five more trays, anyway. Hero held her arms out, and Rosalyn put two trays down. When Hero still didn’t move, not even remotely fucking around, Rosalyn put down a third.
Later, when Rosalyn and JR came back from the fund-raiser with armloads of steel chafing dishes and trays that needed to be washed, the restaurant wasn’t even half full. Hero followed Rosalyn back into the kitchen and wordlessly put on Adela’s rubber gloves, picked up one of the trays, and started squirting dish soap into it.
Fucking quit that, Rosalyn said.
It won’t take long.
Rosalyn growled to herself, marched up to the sink, then took the hose suspended above it. She turned it on, then aimed it at the back of Hero’s neck.
Hero jumped, away from the tray, sticky gloved hand going up to the back of her neck instinctively. What—
I get it, you’re a tough cookie! Rosalyn shouted, anger deforming her face like fire curling a page. Don’t do this hardass robot shit with me just because I’m fucking worried about you! Carrying every tray in the restaurant isn’t gonna bring Roni back!
Hero stood there, water dripping from her nape. Rosalyn closed her eyes, the hand holding the hose dropping to her side.
You think I don’t know that, Hero said slowly.
Rosalyn rubbed at the bridge of her nose. Maybe you just need to take a break. Go home—
Go home where, Hero said, thinking of the kitchen table where Roni’s chair had been left empty for months; the garage door that creaked opened at midnight to let Paz in, and then at five in the morning again to let her out; Vigan where her parents had been telling people that she’d been dead for years; their new house in Bantay that she’d never seen, where she was sure her parents never spoke of her at all; or Isabela, No Permanent Address, where she didn’t know if all the people she’d loved were still there, still alive, if she’d ever again see the lighthouse look of irrevocable and unwreckable love that Teresa wore when a cadre who might not have come back from a mission—came back. Hero was roaring from her chest by the second time: Go home where?
Rosalyn stared at Hero, mouth soft and open. To shove that stare off of her, Hero turned away brusquely and started to remove the dishwashing gloves, trying not to wince at the pressure and, judging from the look on Rosalyn’s face, failing. She held them for a moment, about to put them back near the sink where they belonged, but found herself unwilling to cross the invisible ravine of pity between herself and Rosalyn, or show Rosalyn that her hands were trembling, all the way up into her armpits. She left them on one of the counters near a stack of dirty chafing
trays, soap suds sliding down the fingers and dripping onto the floor.
In the parking lot, it took Hero a while to find her keys, and even when she found them, she fumbled them. She stood at the car’s driver’s side, praying she wouldn’t drop them, at least. Behind her, she heard Rosalyn in the restaurant yell something to JR—could you, for a minute—and the door opened again.
Rosalyn stalked toward the passenger side, wrenched the door handle outward, and when the door didn’t open, stared down at it, waiting. Hero hadn’t even gotten in the car yet herself.
She unlocked her door, opened it gingerly, and sat behind the wheel. She leaned across the armrest to unlock the passenger side door. Rosalyn slipped inside, silent. Hero left her own door open.
Rosalyn reached across their laps and took hold of one of Hero’s hands, holding it in both of hers. Without looking up at Hero, Rosalyn began lightly kneading along the meaty part of Hero’s hand just beneath the thumbs, where she had probably glimpsed Hero sometimes massaging herself.
It’s fine, Hero said finally. I’m sorry for yelling.
Rosalyn didn’t move, kept kneading. Hero moved to pull her hand away.
The things you told me at Christmas that one time, Rosalyn said, still not looking at her.
Hero went still.
I don’t wanna force you to talk about stuff you don’t wanna talk about. I told myself a while ago I wouldn’t. But. I’m not gonna lie. I wanna know.
Hero didn’t say anything, even though Rosalyn gave her a long time to answer.
Rosalyn finally added: Sometimes I think you wanna talk about it, too.
Hero leaned to the left without pulling her hand from Rosalyn’s, although the movement made Rosalyn tighten her grasp by instinct. Hero closed her door, shutting out the ambient sounds of the parking lot, the nearby streets, so she could more clearly hear Rosalyn’s breath quicken, could hear the twitchy scratch of her sleeve against Hero’s palm.
America Is Not the Heart Page 38
