MIGUEL

March 2020

It was almost lunchtime when I arrived at Mama's house in Quezon City. Well, technically, it's our house. Mama, along with my elder sister, Ate* Kate, and her two daughters Elaine and Suzanne, have been living under the same roof for almost a couple of years now. If you're wondering where Ate's husband is in this lovely picture, well, that's another story for another time — one that requires a bottle of wine and a great deal of patience.

Today is Friday. If the hollow silence in the kitchen is any indication, Mama is running late and hasn't arrived yet from her weekly shopping and errands.

Good. Because she tends to be fussy and whiny whenever I show up on short notice.

To be fair, I've rarely paid them a visit the past few years. I've been renting a tiny apartment in an old converted tenement in Taguig City since 2014, and I quickly realized that the weekend trips to Q.C. and back were too much trouble, both for me and my wallet. If I'm being honest, my collective enthusiasm for seeing Mama, Ate, and the girls on a regular basis, is nowhere near enough to make me want to wade through Metro Manila's abysmal pollution and traffic situation.

Heck, Mama and my sister can complain all they want. They often accuse me of deliberately making myself unavailable to them. That I'm a snob, or that I'm keeping a secret boyfriend from them.

Well, they're wrong about the last one. One could only wish!

They'd probably whine less if they care enough to ask how much I spend for the commute alone, which puts a serious strain on my meager personal budget. Heck, they probably have no idea I work thirty hours a week on my freelancing gig as a software developer. On Philippine standards (which really isn't much), I receive fairly generous salaries from freelancing.

With my current five-figure salary (in pesos, of course!), you'd think I'd be able to afford a nice and cozy condo unit for myself, by now. But apparently, Lolo* Hermie (may his soul rest in peace) and Mama had completely different plans for me and my money. As it turns out, when Lolo passed away three years ago, he'd left behind an outstanding debt of 8 million pesos at the bank, for the very house Mama and Ate are currently living in.

It still fucks me up how Lolo never bothered to mention a single thing about this loan. Then again, I couldn't blame him (at least not entirely) because back in the day, "it's grownup talk, Miggy, stay out of it"! It also speaks volumes about my interest (or the lack of it) to get to know my relatives better because all my life, I'd assumed my mother's side of the family, the Rosaleses, have a bottomless pit of money somewhere. After all, they owned one of the oldest restaurants in the country. For God's sake, Lolo even used to own a Chrysler!

So being able to afford a house in one of the most exclusive gated communities in the city should be cheap change, right? Wrong! "Being able to afford" is an overstatement. It's all a fucking farce! A disastrous attempt at making themselves look good in front of their genuinely affluent friends and neighbors.

To make matters worse, even the cost for the restaurant's latest renovation had been loaned, burying us deeper with an additional 3 million debt. It took two fiery, vitriol-infused arguments, constant threats to cut myself off from the family, and a month of simmering silence between me and Mama, before she finally caved and decided to sell the restaurant for good. Sure, it cut a large chunk off the money we owe, but we're still left with a four-million-peso debt, which could easily be solved if Lolo left an insurance policy.

Except he didn't, because we're in the Philippines and laying out an insurance plan is just as much an afterthought as getting a credit card. I wonder if Lolo's feeling some sort of remorse right now, wherever he is. Again, may his soul rest in peace!

Sometimes, I feel bad for not caring enough to know how my relatives are faring. I was never close to any of my aunties, uncles, and cousins. We used to move around a lot because of Papa's job, so there was never a sense of permanence and "home", until much later. Besides, the closest relatives we have are in Sorsogon, which is pretty much a world away from Metro Manila. We barely even talk to them, outside the obligatory group video calls and annual reunions.

The Vargases are pretty much a one-family island — a bunch of loners who have to rely on each other to survive. So when the problem with the bank debt surfaced, you can only imagine how much this one-family island needed to send out an S.O.S.

Problem is, none of us are thick-faced enough to do that. And anyway, I doubt any of my relatives are willing to pick up our distress signal. Call it pride or whatever, but the Vargases would rather die than grovel and ask for outside help.

So you see, Ate and I have learned painfully harsh lessons from our precedents, ones I would never want my nieces to experience when they grow up. But because Mama couldn't even hold a job for longer than three months, it's all up to me and Ate to pay off the debts and bear the brunt of the storm my grandparents have left in their wake.

Family duties. How positively lovely!

Slowly, I head upstairs, shaking off these thoughts and the unexpected flash of moodiness. The only sounds in the house are the muffled voices of the girls, squealing and giggling in their bedroom. In Ate's room, just across from the girls', a newscaster is droning on about the hottest topic since the beginning of the year: A new and potentially life-threatening virus. They call it the 2019-nCoV, which sounds just about as scary as SARS, if not worse. Sheesh.

I paused in the foyer just outside my sister's half-opened bedroom door, straining to hear the reporter's voice in clear context. More casualties in China. They've already pinpointed Ground Zero — Wulong or Wuhan or some such. People dropping dead in the streets. She's making it sound like the fucking apocalypse now, sending chills down my spine.

How is our government reacting to all this? They can't possibly be downplaying this, right? They should probably impose travel restrictions soon, before it's too late. I've watched enough pandemic and zombie movies to know shit goes south fast the moment you let the infected get on the plane!

Take a chill pill, Miguel. It's not like it's an actual zombie invasion... or is it?

I shook my head and slung my duffel bag over my shoulder as I made my way toward my bedroom. It's the one at the farthest end of the hall, next to a linen closet and opposite the master bedroom. It's the smallest room in the house, but I had to fight tooth and nail to win it over my sister. She eventually got the second biggest room in the house, but I didn't care. My bedroom had been my own little sanctuary back in the day and honestly, it's got the best view in the house — of Mama's garden with the zinnias and the white jasmines she'd planted, and the old dama de noche tree that effuses a lovely aroma at night.

There's nothing particularly special about this big, old house but in those six years I spent in this bedroom, I can say without a doubt that this house, this room, was where I grew up. Here, I felt a sense of permanence. Probably even a home.

But the last time I spent the night in this room was way back 2012, when Typhoon Pablo hit the country and I had to help Lolo Hermie and Mama make some repairs around the house. The old man was a bit of a clean freak but when he passed away, Mama and Ate no longer cared much for keeping up with house maintenance and cleaning unused rooms, especially when they rarely have guests staying over. So I could only expect the worst for my room.

The door rattled on its hinges, and the rusty knob nearly fell off as I gave it a twist. As soon as I pushed the door open, a waft of musty and stale air immediately assaulted my senses. I let out a sigh as I dropped my duffel bag in the doorway and covered my nose with the back of my hand. "Welcome home, Miguel," I grumbled to myself as I carefully stepped into the room, the floor groaning and creaking beneath a threadbare carpet.

I gave the space a quick perusal. The navy-blue wallpaper was old; peeling away in places where the furniture had been pushed against walls. The right wall used to be covered with posters of my favorite bands and anime. It's completely bare now, with tape marks from where my posters used to be.

Apart from the oak dresser, the study desk, the bookshelf, and the single bed hugging the left wall, my room is bare and dismal. The bed was covered with a yellow-stained muslin sheet, and I don't even have to swipe a finger to know it's covered in a layer of dust. I crinkled my nose as I made a mental checklist of things to be done this afternoon.

The room has one large window that overlooked the backyard. But there's a second, smaller window facing our next-door neighbor's. Immediately, my eyes strayed to the house next door: The large yet austere red-brick mansion of the Padua family. I admit it was a bit of an eyesore with its ambiguous architectural style, but it's one of the reasons I loved having chosen this particular room for myself.

Because his room was directly opposite mine. I could see into his room, which meant he could also see into mine. This space we shared between us used to be our sanctuary.

In an instant, a wave of memories surged up like a tide. The image of a brilliant smile, revealing a slightly crooked tooth that I've always adored, complementing the spark of light in a pair of eyes so light a brown, they were almost gold. The sound of hearty laughter that sends my heart rattling around my chest. Of slender fingers intertwined with mine, the warmth rushing through my limbs.

No... I'm not so sure I want to remember now. It's all in the past. I've been over this. I'm done.