Dalisay didn’t know where she was. 

This wasn’t her room. The blanket on the bed was scratchy and strange, and even in the dark, she could tell that the walls were the wrong color. The whole place smelled funny, like cough syrup. 

Her body felt wrong too…everything ached, and she couldn’t move right, almost fell back on the bed when she tried to sit up too fast. When she slowly brought her hands up to her face, she couldn’t see them very well—but even through her blurry vision, they looked weird, like they were somebody else’s.

She felt like there was something important…something she was supposed to remember, but it was just out of reach. Her head was full of cotton wool.

She wondered if Nanay would come soon to tuck her in. 

Movement…over in the corner.

There was something in the room with her. For just a moment, she thought it must be Alvin—they shared a bedroom, so if he was here, at least something was right. But she squinted at the figure, and even though her eyes weren’t working, she could tell it was wrong…it was a nightmare of a creature that looked wrong, moved wrong, was wrong—the most wrong thing in a whole wrong world.

She tried to get up. Her body was heavy, tired…every movement sparked with pain deep inside, muscle and bone. When she sat up, the world swam, and she gripped the headboard as she tried to shift to stand. 

A strange man was beside her, pulling her away from the bed. She panicked—was he a bad guy? But no…there was something bad here, and he was fighting it? She tried to understand, but everything was too foggy and far away. 

Light exploded in her vision. She shut her eyes against it, but it didn’t work, like the light was inside her, bouncing around inside her skull. Then…

Eighty years of memories hit Dalisay all at once.

Her mind opened up, images and names rushing past her consciousness so fast that she could barely see any of them, just caught glimpses as her corroded synapses sparked back to life—

—she realized she knew what synapses were in the same moment she remembered her husband—

—Esteban—

—and she stood in the graveyard, burying him far too soon, and she knew she’d need to be strong somehow—

—she hid under the bed with her big brother; the bad men were coming and she wasn’t supposed to cry—

—the scent of incense, faith filling her up with light as she bowed her head in prayer, rosary clinking gently between her fingers—

—day off, dance hall, her heart pounding in rhythm with the frenetic music and the man she was pressed against—

—her grandson home from kindergarten, proudly handing her a finger-paint family: Mom, Lola, and Alvin—

—the children’s father cornering her, but she slipped under his arm and back down the hall and hid, heart racing, in her room in the big house that wasn’t hers—

—she was at the supermarket, but why did she come here? She didn’t know what she needed to buy, and the way home was just out of reach—

—she’d move overseas, send money home; Nanay didn’t want her to go, didn’t know what she’d do without her—

—Sofie was out after curfew; anger, sadness, grief that the sweet child she raised would scare her like this cut through her as she waited and waited—

—her brother’s face on the computer screen, so old and wrinkled (she was too) but his smile was the same as ever—

—the baby tap danced on her bladder, and she told Esteban “she’s got your dance moves”—

—Sofie, so thin, dark circles and hard angles were all that the cancer had left; it hurt to see her like this but she refused to look away—

—fury in her gut, but the priest told her to forgive, forgive—

—the doctor was saying something important, but it was hard to pay attention; Young Alvin was holding her hand—

—she held Sofie’s hand, gripped it tight and told her to push as her boyfriend stood there, panicking and useless—

—browning onions in a pan, the oil boiling and snapping and prickling on her arm—

—Esteban’s mouth on hers, his work-rough hand caressing her breast—

—kicking her shoes off after a long day, aching feet finally finding relief—

—a drag on a cigarette, chemical relief spreading through her—

—wrenching her back, the pain sending her to her knees—

The memory of pain hit her at the same moment she was pushed to the floor, and her attention was yanked back to the present.

Young Alvin was there, pulling her away. She could see his face clearly in the dark room—the strange light was coming from him, from his hands, and she really saw him for what seemed like the first time in forever. 

He was terrified. He was holding a pan up like a shield, but it shook in his grip.

She turned to look at the monster in the room.

It was still there, even after she came back to herself. It wasn’t some childish imagined threat—this thing was here with her. 

Somehow, though, it didn’t scare her. The light was still inside her, bouncing from her skull down through her spine, radiating into every muscle and vein, every cell of her, and everywhere it touched suddenly felt renewed. The aches faded, shaking halted, and atrophied muscles seemed to swell under her skin. She stood on her own two legs, and suddenly they could hold her. She felt light.

She felt like she could do anything. 

She spotted her old cane leaning in the corner and darted out to grab it, leaving Young Alvin behind for a moment, and wielded it like a club. She didn’t give him or the monster a moment to register this sudden change in her, just dashed for the creature, already swinging at where its head seemed to be.

The cane connected with a thwack. 

The monster reeled, and she kept going, beating the thing out through the doorway of her room and into the living room. She didn’t let it touch her, didn’t give it a chance to counterattack, just kept hitting it with everything she had. 

She couldn’t remember ever feeling like this before, even at the peak of young adulthood. Suddenly she was fast, strong, unstoppable. She laughed, the sound ripping out of her, wild and shrill. 

The monster swung at her with shadowy claws, tearing through the lacy neck of her nightgown and scratching her shoulder, but she didn’t care. She knocked its arm down, then pinned it to the ground with one foot. A chill seeped through her sock where it touched the thing, but she ignored it, just gave the monster another good whap with her cane right in the head. 

She realized her cane was glowing now, almost like Young Alvin’s hands, though its light was colder and bluer than the golden sunshine that had opened up her mind. And as she hit the creature, it seemed to diminish. It was smaller now, wisps of smoke escaping and dissipating into the air. She ground down with her foot, and the arm she was standing on seemed to poof out of existence. The creature turned and tried to run for the window—well, run was the wrong word, since it had left any semblance of human form behind at this point. It seemed bizarre to try to attack a puff of smoke, but Dalisay did anyway, and her blue-glowing cane connected with something. 

With that final swing, it faded into nothing.

Dalisay turned. Young Alvin was standing in the doorway, mouth open. She stood to her full four-foot-ten, stooped spine fully straightened for the first time in what must have been years, and smiled.

“Well, I suppose that takes care of that,” she said. 

“Wh-what the actual fuck…?” Young Alvin stammered.

“Language,” she admonished, fully on autopilot. 

“…Lola?” he rasped. His voice was lower now, but that tone was the same one she remembered from when he was a tiny boy, scared of monsters in the night.

She stepped over to him and looked him up and down. He was clearly in shock after all that. Well, she knew how to take care of things.

“Yes, of course. I’m right here, Apo. Danger’s passed. Come now, let’s take a little rest, then we’ll talk.”

She sat her grandson down on the ugly, blocky futon sofa, then stepped away to the little kitchen to put on the kettle. As her hands went through the familiar motions, she took stock of her body. She still felt…good, better than she had in years, even looking back through the normal aches and pains of middle age, even counting the throbbing scratch on her shoulder.

Then she tried to remember. Her memory felt…scattered. Long-past events felt like they’d just happened, things from decades ago clear as crystal. She half expected Esteban to walk through the door, tired from a long day, and she also expected to see an adult Sofie bringing the baby home from the park…but Esteban didn’t live long enough to see Sofie become a mother, and the baby was sitting ten feet away, a grown man. Her stomach sank as she realized again that they were both gone. 

Recent years were blurrier. This apartment felt so strange. She recognized little things—she’d bought this kettle years ago, for one, and she knew the pattern on the plates in the drying rack. She knew the layout, recognized her chair even though that must’ve been a fairly recent purchase, knew which door led to the linen closet and which one led to the bathroom. 

It was a cramped, dingy place. She wished she could remember how they lost their home, the two-story townhouse where she raised first her daughter, then her grandson, but that memory was somewhere in the haze. 

She went back over to Alvin and sat next to him. He was on his phone, voice shaky.

“N-no, we’re okay. D-don’t call anyone… I gotta go. I’ll tell you about it later.” 

He hung up and dropped the phone to one side.

“Lola…? You… Do you know who I am?”

“I do.” She took his hand. “My darling grandson, Alvin.”

He looked at her.

“Are you back? Like, really back?”

“I remember a lot,” she said, staring out at nothing. “Some things are…jumbled. Older memories are clearer. The last few years…it’s like looking through fog.” 

Young Alvin's eyes were still wide, his expression wooden with shock. She squeezed his hand.

“I…I don’t understand what happened.”

“Neither do I. But, well…miracles aren’t meant to be understood, I suppose.” 

“That’s… I don’t… That can’t be our answer.”

She smiled at him.

“Maybe not forever—just for now. But you did something incredible. Thank you.”

With that, he reached over and engulfed her in a hug. He held on gently, like he was used to touching her gingerly for fear of hurting her. 

Dalisay hugged him back hard—harder than should have been possible. Young Alvin took that as a sign that he didn’t need to be so careful and clung on to her tight, face buried in her uninjured shoulder, tears soaking into the fabric. She could only half understand his mumbling.

“…tried to…no good…missed you…since Mom…”

She rubbed his back and let him get it out. Although her memories of the past five years or so were vague, she could still remember bits and pieces. She’d seen some of what he’d gone through when her memory started to fail, and when she was so far gone she didn’t know him anymore, didn’t know anything but a few snatches from childhood. And, well, she could fill in some of the blanks. She’d nursed his mother through her long illness, after all. 

The kettle’s whistle interrupted them. He pulled away quickly, still jumpy.

“I got it,” Young Alvin said, cutting her off as she tried to stand. “Just…you stay there. Earl Grey with a little milk?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Same as always.”

At that, his shoulders seemed to stiffen, and he rushed off to fumble with mugs and tea bags.

She’d still barely thought about the other thing that had happened. As far as she could understand, Young Alvin did something that…fixed her mind somehow, and repaired her elderly body. And then, she’d fought that thing. No, not just fought—she destroyed it.

The last time she’d thrown a punch, she was five years old. She’d ended up hurting her hand, getting pushed down in the mud, and ruining her favorite dress. She’d decided it wasn’t worth it to fight that way.

But today, she’d known she had to end that thing if they were going to survive, and somehow her body knew what to do. Somehow she was strong and fast enough to get it done. 

She looked down at her hands, at the pale, wrinkled skin and knobbly knuckles. She made a fist and felt the power there. 

She smiled to herself. The why didn’t matter much to her, though really, “miracle” seemed like the only way to describe what had happened.

She’d been given the gift of more time, so she would have to make the most of it.