Sink or swim
September 10, 2006 | 12:00am
Second Prize, Short Story,
2006 Palanca Awards
Myrza Sisons first story to ever win an award was a comic strip called "The Girl and the Balloon," written when she was six, and which appeared on the cover of For Children magazine. Back then, her mother refused to believe her when she pointed to the magazine in a bookstore and said, "Thats my story!"
Subsequently, she found herself gravitating towards journalism in every school she attended, always finding ways to become some sort of editor for the school paper. She always knew in her heart that she wanted to be a writer, but parental pressure ("You cant make a living out of writing!") intimidated her, so she decided to be an obedient daughter and tried to be a statistician. But instead of becoming editor of the Philippine Statistical Yearbook, she retaliated and became a modelfor seven years, to the further chagrin of her parents.
As her modeling expiration date drew near, she got her first real writing gig with The Philippine STARs Lifestyle section in 1994 when she was assigned to chronicle the behind-the-scenes goings on of a major fashion show for an article called "Backstage Drama."
She then joined Summit Media, becoming Previews first fashion editor in 1995, Cosmopolitans launch editor in 1997, Summit Media editorial director in 2001, and Marie Claires launch editor in 2005. In 2004 she joined the Dumaguete National Writers workshop, surviving killer weather, humbling living conditions and tough literati panelists headed by National Artist Dr. Edith "Mom" Tiempo.
Myrza is currently on AWOL from her M.A. in Creative Writing at UP Diliman. "Sink or Swim" was written in 2002 for her first fiction class under Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo. Someday, Myrza plans to find the time to go back to school and write more fiction. She is still hoping to make a living out of writing, but now knows that her parents are proud of her.
Look, she has hair on her kili-kili! Yecch! Blecch! Ewwww!" I whisper to my four-year-old sister Tisha, who is too busy splashing about in the water with her tiny little hands to care. "Yecch! Blecch! Ewww!" she squeals, followed by a fit of giggles. Shes copying the way I talk again. I dont think she even knows what Im talking about. But never mind. She looks so cute in her orange bikini I want to bite her.
Tisha hasnt been listening to me lately. She should, because Im her Ate, but these days shes just been such a bad girl. Even Yaya says so. Suwail, she calls Tisha. Last year, in the sandbox in school, when I told her the Family Secret she just kept on shoveling sand into her little yellow pail. She was making a castle for her Princess Barbie doll.
"Tisha, Ill tell you a secret but you promise not to tell, okay?"
"Okay." She pressed her little palms to pack the sand into the pail and inverted it onto the ground.
"Swear to God? Cross your heart and hope to die?"
She crossed her heart with her left hand while patting the roof of her castle with her right.
"You know why Mom was crying again last night?"
"Cause she was sad?"
"Yeah, but do you know why she was sad?"
Tisha just shrugged. She poured some water from her Thermos on her castle to make it more siksik. I wanted to scold her for wasting her cold drinking water but I was too busy telling her the secret.
"Dad had a child with another woman! We have a half-brother! His name is Diego!"
She didnt even look at me. She scooped sand again into her yellow pail. Then, she got sand from the pail with her shovel and put it into her Thermos! Into her drinking water! "Mwahahahahahaha!" she laughed an evil laugh like The Count on Sesame Street. "Sand Juice! With ice! Yum, yum! Want some, Ate Tanya?" She finally looked up at me and smirked.
Tisha isnt listening to me either today on this very hot day at the Olympic-sized swimming pool at the YWCA, which is filled with lots of children who look negro already from their swimming lessons. The little girls bathing suits are not very nice, not like mine and Tishas, which Mom bought for us in Rustans. Mine is a pink one-piece with big yellow flowers and a bumblebee. Tishas is an orange bikini with plastic yellow rings that hold the bra in the middle and on each side of the panty. She chose it herself. Shes so arte talaga. The little boys are so magulo and their swimming trunks just look like ordinary pambahay. I think they go to public school because theyre not speaking in English. And the water smells funny, like Clorox mixed with sweat and rubber from their ugly black salbabidas. Were on the side of the pool in the corner facing the street me, Tisha and her Diegos mom, our swimming teacher, Hairy Kili-kili Woman.
"Its okay with you?" I heard Dad say last week when Mom suggested we take swimming lessons with her. I almost said "Ewwww!" out loud but I covered my mouth. "Why not?" Mom replied. "Youve always wanted the girls to learn how to swim, right? Shes as good a teacher as any, I suppose. At least shes someone we know," she said. "Ang bait mo talaga," he said and smiled.
She wasnt always that kind to him about her. Last-last year, another one of Moms crying and fighting sessions with Dad woke me up. I ran to their room and saw her trying to grab a yellow Kodak envelope from Dad. "Let me see! Is that the kid? Let me see!" she yelled. I had never heard her shout at him before. I could tell Dad was very angry because his bushy eyebrows formed one straight line, like Berts on Sesame Street. "Give them back!" he yelled back at her. Their agawan became very rough. I got scared. Then, I got even more scared when Dad caught me peeking by the door and yelled at me, too: "Tanya! Go back to your room!"
Dad used to be nice, especially when he would tell me bedtime stories about Achilles and his heel and Medusa and her snake hairdo from his old brown Greek Mythology pocketbook. Or when hed show me the great paintings of the world from the Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia like the "Mona Lisa" or the dark blue and yellow swirly one like in the song Starry, Starry Night. But lately, especially after Tisha turned two, he began to yell more and more often. Especially when we touched his things. Once when I got his giant brown Swingline stapler from his study table because I needed it to staple my assignment for English and I forgot to return it, he started screaming at the whole house. He yelled, "Sino bang punyetang kumukuha ng mga gamit ko?" and started throwing things. But I was only borrowing it! I just forgot to ask for his permission. I was too afraid to return the stapler, so I hid in my closet and buried it under my clothes until I was sure he was gone. Later, I returned it when he wasnt looking.
Last February 14, Mom didnt even come home at all. That day, we made greeting cards for our parents in art class with red art paper. I cut out two big hearts and glued them on top of each other and wrote "Its Valentines Day!" on top of the hearts using red Pentel Pen. But when I got home and Mom wasnt there, I got worried. So I wrote "Please dont fight!" on top of "Its Valentines Day" and put the card beside their dinner plates. I waited and waited for Mom to come home until I fell asleep. At midnight, I woke up and ran to the dining room. Their plates were still there, untouched. Maybe they went out to dinner together and didnt see my card! So I got the card and went to their room. Dad was sleeping alone in their bed. Even if I was scared he might shout at me for waking him up, I tapped him on his back and gave him the card. I started to cry. "Wheres Mom?" I asked. "Dont cry," he said, "she slept in your Tita Alices house." I didnt ask why. He let me sleep beside him. When Yaya woke me up to go to school the next morning, Mom still wasnt there.
Maybe Mom decided to be kind now because Tita Alice told her, "Just kill him with kindness," when Mom confessed to her and my other titas, the wives of Dads brothers, that Dad had a kid with another woman. They were all in the garden pretending to look at Moms orchids. They thought I couldnt hear them from where I was by the swing, but I could. I pretended to fix my favorite Raggedy Ann and Andy knee socks because their elastic parts were so worn out they kept rolling down. I had to put rubber bands on each knee and fold the top of each sock over to keep them up.
"Ang bait mo naman," my Tita Mary said, "Okay lang sa yo?"
"Wala kong magagawa, eh. Hes always wanted a boy," Mom shrugged. My other titas just kept quiet and looked away. "Eh, I couldnt give him one. Look o," she pointed to Thea, our six-month-old baby sister in Yayas arms. "Another girl," she sighed. "Wala akong laban."
We are in the part of the pool near the stairs, and Hairy Kili-kili Woman is putting on her bathing cap. Its like a shower cap but tighter and made of rubber. Its bright green, matching her one-piece bathing suit with lots of leaves and flowers. Maybe her long, thick, curly hair, which Yaya calls "kinky," couldnt fit into the cap, thats why she had to wet it first to make it more flat. Thats how I first saw her kili-kili hair, which is also curly like the hair on her head, when she put her hands up to pile up all her hair on top to put the cap on. Ewwww. Her kili-kilis look like little curly porcupines. Maybe they need bathing caps, too. I imagine how that would look and start to laugh.
"First, we will learn how to do bubbles," Hairy Kili-kili Woman tells us, leading us deeper into the part of the pool that says "3 FT." The water reaches up to my kili-kili and almost up to Tishas neck. Tisha jumps up and down in the water and claps her hands. She loves bubbles. H.K.W. laughs, plants a kiss on Tishas cheek and jumps up and down with her. Ewwww. I flash Tisha a sungit look and try to make my eyebrows meet, but she doesnt mind me. Theyre holding hands in the water, and H.K.W. reaches out to me so I can join their circle, but I just stare at her and put my hands behind my back.
Okay, her name isnt really H.K.W. Its Amihan. Amihan Marquez. Shes a painter and a water ballerina. Mom told me this one night last year. I was on the floor in my room gluing pictures of flowers I cut out from her old Good Housekeeping magazines on bond paper for my "Flowers of the World" project in Botany. I thought she would get mad when she came into the room because I made so much kalat and spilled Elmers Glue on the floor. I was about to cover the gluey spot with a piece of bond paper so she wouldnt see it when she suddenly sat down on the floor with me. She didnt see the spot at all. Her eyes were red and she was wiping her sipon with a Kleenex. "Tanya, I have to talk to you," she said, looking very serious. I wondered what I did wrong. Uh-oh, maybe I forgot to check if the magazines I was cutting were really old! Then, she got up and pulled me towards her. "Come with me," she said and led me to the door. "Where are we going?" I asked. "To Aristocrat," she said. "Lets have a midnight snack." It was only nine oclock.
Mom, Tisha and I go to Aristocrat for breakfast every Sunday after hearing Mass in Malate Church. Its near our house on Carolina Street so we just walk. Dad stopped going to church a long time ago. Mom says hes an atheist, which is someone who doesnt believe in God. Mom says when he was a little boy he was a sacristan in their church, but when he became a grownup he stopped believing in God. Thats why Tisha and I study in the Learning Community where they dont teach religion. Mom wanted us to go to a Catholic school like Assumption, but Dad said no. He said he wanted us to learn to think for ourselves and not according to any religion. Thats why when my cousins asked me to show them my First Communion picture and I said I didnt have one, they laughed at me. Mom said not to mind them. She lets me take Communion anyway, because I like the taste of the Body of Christ.
"But Mom," I whined, "I have to change first. Im just in my pajamas and chinelas!" "Thats okay, lets go, come on!" She almost yanked my arm off. Thats when I knew something was really wrong. She never allows us to leave the house unless were dressed nicely. We cant even play outside in our slippers. We have to wear shoes.
I ordered my favorite Chicken Honey and a Choco-Vim. Mom wasnt hungry. She just asked for tea. It was very different in Aristocrat at night. There were no children like on Sundays, no vendors in front selling balloons and colored popcorn and pet chicks and colorful maya birds in bamboo cages. Just negra-looking women in very short skirts wearing a lot of makeup, making landi to foreigners. I tried not to stare at them too much. I think theyre called Hospitality Girls. I see them hanging around the go-go bars when the school bus passes by Mabini Street. While waiting for our order, Mom told me.
"Youre a big girl now," she began. No, Im not, I wanted to say, because when we form a line "according to height" during flag ceremony, Im just Number 2. "And youre very smart for your age," she continued. Oh, okay, maybe she meant I was only eight and already in Grade Four. All my other classmates were ten. "So I know its time for you to know," Mom said, trying not to cry. She said Dad still loved us but he wanted a baby boy so badly that he had to find another Mommy for it. Mom said all she could make was girls like me and Tisha and Thea. But she said Diego, our baby brother, was very cute and we would meet him soon and he might stay with us during the weekends. She said not to tell other people, that it would be our Family Secret. Yaya later told me that Amihan was a kabit and Diego was an anak sa labas.
I tried to cry like Flor de Luna. I blinked my eyes very hard, waiting for tears to come out, but nothing came out. So I just embraced Mom and stroked her hair, which only made her cry more. I didnt know what to do. The Hospitality Girls were looking at her. I said "Shhhh " like I see in sad movies on TV. I felt like I was the Mommy and she was the baby. By the time my order came, I had lost my appetite, so Mom just told the waiter, "Take home."
Tita Amihan (Mom told me to call her that, but I still cant say it out loud) is still smiling at me even if Im suplada to her. Her teeth are very big and white, like her eyes. Maybe they look so white because her skin is so dark, not like Mom, whos fair like me and has singkit eyes and short, straight hair like mine. We always have our hair cut in the same style in the beauty parlor, the Page Boy. Its the same hairstyle in her wedding photo with Dad, where she looks so pretty in her Princess gown and he looks so handsome in his Amerikana, I swear they look just like a movie love team, like Susan Roces and Eddie Gutierrez or Gloria Romero and Juancho Gutierrez in the Sine Siete movies Yaya lets us watch every afternoon before our siesta.
Tisha looks more like Dad, dark and curly with big eyes. Yaya told me Tita Amihan looks like a Jeprox, like Sampaguita, because shes always wearing long, loose clothes with no bra and doesnt comb her hair whenever Yaya picks up Diego from their apartment every Saturday to bring him to our house. Once, when Mom heard me calling Tita Amihan a Jeprox, she got mad and said its not nice to call people names. She explained that Tita Amihan was an artist and probably a hippie, thats why she looked like that. Mom said Tita Amihan was the one who painted the big blue-and-green painting in our sala. Thats what the A.M. in the bottom corner of the painting meant all along Amihan Marquez! Well, its not really a painting of anything. It just looks like a jigsaw puzzle. Dad told me its called an abstract, but he didnt tell me she painted it. It used to be my favorite painting in the whole house and I used to copy it all the time in my sketchpad with my Cray Pas until I learned the Family Secret.
Well, I think she looks a like a bomba star. Like a negra Vivian Velez doing her sexy "Body Language" dance on Discorama on Channel 7. They have the same body, like in the rhyme the boys in school love to recite: "Wow sexy, Katawan Pepsi, Coca-Cola body, Lawlaw panty!"
Vivian Velez is also always bra-less. When she dances, she squirms and wiggles and her big boobs jiggle around, so Tisha and I laugh and copy her wriggly worm dance while singing, "When youre moving next to me, I can feel your body heat, so come on move a little closer, let me feel your body heat " Whenever we watch the show every Saturday night, Tito Boy, Moms younger brother, points to her nipples making bakat under her tube top and says, "Hayop!"
Right now in the pool, Tita Amihans nipples are also making bakat under her wet bathing suit. She also wont stop smiling at me. I hate her stupid smile. Whats she so happy about anyway? I suddenly remember that I havent seen Mom smile in such a long time. Shes always sad and crying or mad at Dad. "Okay, girls, who can show me how to inhale and exhale?" Tita Amihan asks. I raise my hand automatically like I always do when I know the answer in class. Tsk! Whyd I do that? Oh well. I wont smile na lang. I show Tita Amihan and Tisha how, drawing in air through my nose and making my stomach small, then breathing the air out, making my stomach big. "Very good," Tita Amihan exclaims and claps. "Now, we are going to make bubbles by doing what Tanya did but under the water. Lets blow out air through our nose and mouth. Lets pretend were sea lions. Do you know what a sea lion is?" I roll my eyes. Sus! Of course I do! I learned it in Zoology. Does she know its a mammal? Tita Amihan sinks down into the water, and when Tisha sees bubbles form on top of her head, she gets excited and copies her right away. Soon, theyre both jumping up and down in the water again, making lots of bubbles and laughing when they come up. "Wow, Tisha, youre a nachural!" she says, pronouncing natural with a "ch." Its just like the way Dad says pizza pie with a "ch" and supermarket and stupid with a "sh" instead of an "s." Theyre looking at me, but I just stand there with my arms crossed in front of me.
"Come on, Tanya, try it!" Tita Amihan calls out to me.
"Yes, Ate Tanya, try it, its fun!" Tisha squeals.
It looks pretty easy, but my feet are glued to the floor of the pool and I cant move. Its so noisy, I cant concentrate suddenly my ears have turned bionic and I can hear the kids in the pool talking, laughing, screaming and splashing water all at the same time. I stare at Tita Amihans curly porcupines. Maybe theyre baho like the anghit of the high school boys who play basketball in our school gym sometimes. I force myself to try. I bend my knees and crouch down until the water comes up to my chin, then I stop. Im afraid to taste the water thats been touched by her kili-kili hair, so I press my lips inwards very tightly to seal my tongue in, then continue crouching down until my head is completely under the water. But I forget to close my eyes! Ouch! The water goes inside my eyes and stings them, so I shut them very tight. I forget to exhale, so the water goes inside my nostrils, stinging them, too. Ouch! I jerk up and come out of the water. I start coughing and sputtering. My eyes are still shut tight and Im pinching my nose because its so painful, like the time a grain of rice got stuck in it. Even my throat hurts. Tita Amihan rushes to me and puts her arm around me. "Oh no, Tanya, are you okay?" she asks. I struggle away from her grasp and grab the hand railing. "Im fine, leave me alone," Im sungit to her again as I wipe the water from my eyes and smooth back all the clumped wet hair thats all over my face.
I want to quit and leave the pool, but I cant. Im trapped. Dad wont pick us up until five. I never wanted to be here in the first place, but I was afraid that Mom and Dad would fight again if I complained. Who cares about swimming anyway? Only Dad does. He says we have to grow up to be survivors. "One day, youll be on a boat that will sink. What if you dont know how to swim? In life, you either sink or swim!" he always says. Dad grew up near Bauang Beach in La Union, so he learned how to swim at a very young age. He wants us to be like him, and even if were girls, he wants us to learn things like riding a bike and karate and sports. He got so angry last summer when Mom, Tisha and I came back from the YWCA and she told him she enrolled us in Hula and Tahitian dance instead of swimming because all the classes were full when we got there. "Hula? Tahitian?" he screamed at Mom. "Anong lecheng kaartehan na naman yan? Thats not a survival skill! Its just a waste of money. My money!" I got scared. He was already mad at Mom for enrolling us in ballet classes. Dad grew up poor and had to sell newspapers and shine shoes to put himself through school, thats why I think he wants us to have a hard time, too. Whenever he sees us with a new toy or new clothes or shoes, he says, "When I was your age, we never had enough money for those things. We had to work to save up money for what we needed." He says we might become spoiled brats if we get too used to special stuff. But Mom used to be a folk dancer, so she wanted us to learn dancing, too. She said we would have good posture and become graceful. I make sure Dad never sees me and Tisha practicing our dancing, and I always hide our ballet shoes and grass skirts under my bed. I know that if he sees them hell remember our dance lessons and get mad again. Im always afraid to make him angry. He might get so mad and leave all of us and make a new family with Tita Amihan and Diego. These days, when I hear his car horn honking whenever he comes home early at night I grab Tisha and we run to my room and hide under my bed. But thats not too often, because usually by the time he gets home were already asleep.
Dont worry, Tanya, youll get the hang of it before you know it! Lets do something easier," says Tita Amihan. She leads us to the gutter and tells us to hold on to it with both hands while stretching out our arms in front of us, then to let our legs float to the surface and kick our feet behind us. "Kick from your knees with your toes pointed," she says. Thats easy, we learned how to point our toes in ballet. "Pretend the top of the water is the roof, and youre breaking the roof from below with your feet." she says. As Tisha and I kick the water-roof, I remember that Tita Amihan is a water ballerina. Mom told me she was an Aquabelle in Sulô Hotel, where theres an underground restaurant with a huge glass window with a view of one side of the pool so the people eating could watch the Aquabelles do water ballet. Ive always wondered if thats how they met. Maybe Dad was eating there and saw her in the window like the Little Mermaid and fell in love with her. Or maybe he saw her nipples making bakat under her bathing suit. But Im too scared to ask Mom. It might make her cry again. I wonder why Dad doesnt want us to study ballet when Tita Amihan is a ballerina, too. Well, sort of. I want to be a ballerina, too, but the real kind, onstage.
"Now, girls, slowly put your face in the water, then try to release your hands from the gutter and kick backwards. Dont worry, Tanya, you can close your eyes first. Inhale, exhale." I look at Tisha. Shes doing it already just like that, she can swim! Without touching the gutter! And her eyes are open! I cant believe it. How can she be so brave? Im surprised that I can even put my face down in the water, but I cant let go of the gutter. Every time I try to let go, one hand at a time, just when Im almost there I change my mind and cling to it again. Its like Im glued to the gutter with Elmers. What a scaredy cat!
Soon, my legs are tired. I stand up to see Tisha and Tita Amihan smiling again and looking at me. They must think Im stupid and hopeless. "Keep trying, Tanya," Tita Amihan says. "You can do it, Ate," Tisha shouts. I roll my eyes. Why does she have to make kampi? Arrrggh! Why cant I do it? Im not stupid, Im bright! In school they call me a prodigy. I can learn anything! Even this! Maybe if I learn this stupid thing we wont have to see Tita Amihan ever again, and Dad will forget about her and our family will go back to normal. The sides of my tummy hurt. So does my head. I really just want to go home. But I cant give up or shell think Im stupid.
I shiver in the water but decide I will keep trying even if my fingers are all wrinkled like prunes and manhid. On my tenth try, just before I stand up to give up, I feel Tita Amihans hands on my stomach. "Relax," she says, "relax your legs and put your face back in the water again," moving me in the water towards the middle of the pool, "and let me teach you how to float." Im so tired, I have no strength left to put up a fight. Her voice is so gentle I feel like Im being hypnotized. I become a very obedient girl and surrender to her. I can feel my whole body turning very straight in the water, touched only by the palm of her hand. Before I know it, my eyes have popped open without the water stinging them, and I can see the blue floor of the pool. It looks like a page from my math notebook. I imagine numbers on each tile and try to solve a math problem. But there are no numbers, just dark, skinny legs attached to ugly bathing suits running around underwater. All of a sudden, its very quiet. No noise from the public school children, no crying Mom, no yelling Dad. Its like a very nice dream. In my head I can hear my favorite Church song, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me " I always wondered what "peace on earth" was like. Maybe its like this. Just me and the water and no noise. My body is moving forward like a slow submarine. Nothing is touching me anymore except the water, and I feel like Im in a cradle. A water cradle thats rocking me to sleep. I can hear someone saying "Shhhhh " and its not me. Its Mom! "Shhhhh " she says, and Im back to being the baby again. I make bubbles without even trying.
After a while, my eyes begin to feel very heavy so I try to make them open wider. The floor has become even bluer, and more peaceful. When I look around me, there are no more skinny legs touching the floor! Where did all the children go? I look to my right behind me and see green flowers and leaves attached to a body attached to arms attached to armpits with hairy porcupines! Its not Mom whos rocking me, its Tita Amihan! I wriggle away from her and move the opposite way. I look to my left and see "6 FT" written on the wall. I panic when I remember that the last time I got measured in the doctors office, I was just four feet tall. I struggle to get up and lift my head out the water, but my body shoots downward like somethings pulling me from below. I drop lower and lower near the blue floor. I cant breathe. I cant make bubbles. Im sinking.
I really want to cry but I cant underwater. Then, from out of the blue, Aquabelle swoops down to rescue me from the floor like Aquaman on Superfriends. She grabs on to my waist and wrist and pulls me up to the surface zooming through the water like a torpedo. I gasp for breath, coughing and spitting out water. She lifts me onto the pools edge, where Tisha is dangling her feet in the water with a very worried look. "Are you okay?" Tita Amihan asks, throwing a towel around me. "Why did you panic? You were floating already! You were really doing well, Tanya! You didnt have to worry. I was right there beside you. Just trust me, okay? Next time, you just have to trust me." I just stare at her. Then, I look at the big clock by the lifeguard tower and say, "Its almost five oclock. Dad will be here soon. My Mom is waiting for us at home." I get up and run to the ladies shower room, forgetting to bring Tisha along.
When we come out of the YWCA, Dad is already waiting at the entrance with Diego. His face lights up when he sees Tita Amihan in her loose, white backless dress. I dont think he even sees me or Tisha until she runs to him and shouts, "I can swim, Dad! I can swim!" He smiles, then looks at me. "How about you, Tanya?" He looks back at Tita Amihan, who gives him a strange look like they have a code. I say nothing, except "Wheres the car?" He points to the parking lot across the street. Hes so busy looking at her that when I say "Can I have the key?" he just hands them over without looking. I leave them and walk towards the car. When I turn around, I see Dad and Tita Amihan holding a squealing Diego in between them, swinging him back and forth with their arms while they talk. Ive never seen Dad laugh and smile so much. He looks so happy. Not mad like he usually is at home. Tisha wants to join them and tries to squeeze in, so I run back to get her and force her to come with me to our car.
"Tisha, get in the back of the car!" I order her. "Ate!" she whines but obeys me. I think of joining her in the back seat, but I worry that Tita Amihan might sit in front, and thats Moms seat. So I sit in front instead. If she wants, she can stay with Tisha in the back. I sneak a look across the street again. I catch Dad kissing Tita Amihan on the lips. Then, she walks away from him in the opposite direction with Diego. Dad crosses the street to join us, alone.
When we get home, it is almost six thirty, and Mom is standing in front of our gate carrying Baby Thea, right under the lamppost. In the ray of light shining over her head, I can see a cloud of lamoks flying on top of her hair. Shes wearing her pink Chinese silk robe on top of her pambahay and just chinelas, and has a kawawa face the kind Tisha makes when she knows shes about to be spanked. Shes wiping her nose with a Kleenex again. I wonder how long shes been waiting for us? She didnt have to stand out there in the street why didnt Yaya just call her inside the house when Dad honked the horn? I suddenly feel very sad. We didnt even think of buying any pasalubong for her!
I dont care if Dad gets mad, I run out of the car to her and hug her tight. She smiles down at me and asks, "So, can you swim now?" I whisper, "I didnt learn Mom, shes not a good teacher!" And just before Tisha can shout from the car window, "I can swim, Mom!" I whisper to her again, "Please dont make me take swimming lessons with her again, Mom. Please." She kisses my forehead, then Theas, and nods.
2006 Palanca Awards
Myrza Sisons first story to ever win an award was a comic strip called "The Girl and the Balloon," written when she was six, and which appeared on the cover of For Children magazine. Back then, her mother refused to believe her when she pointed to the magazine in a bookstore and said, "Thats my story!"
Subsequently, she found herself gravitating towards journalism in every school she attended, always finding ways to become some sort of editor for the school paper. She always knew in her heart that she wanted to be a writer, but parental pressure ("You cant make a living out of writing!") intimidated her, so she decided to be an obedient daughter and tried to be a statistician. But instead of becoming editor of the Philippine Statistical Yearbook, she retaliated and became a modelfor seven years, to the further chagrin of her parents.
As her modeling expiration date drew near, she got her first real writing gig with The Philippine STARs Lifestyle section in 1994 when she was assigned to chronicle the behind-the-scenes goings on of a major fashion show for an article called "Backstage Drama."
She then joined Summit Media, becoming Previews first fashion editor in 1995, Cosmopolitans launch editor in 1997, Summit Media editorial director in 2001, and Marie Claires launch editor in 2005. In 2004 she joined the Dumaguete National Writers workshop, surviving killer weather, humbling living conditions and tough literati panelists headed by National Artist Dr. Edith "Mom" Tiempo.
Myrza is currently on AWOL from her M.A. in Creative Writing at UP Diliman. "Sink or Swim" was written in 2002 for her first fiction class under Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo. Someday, Myrza plans to find the time to go back to school and write more fiction. She is still hoping to make a living out of writing, but now knows that her parents are proud of her.
Look, she has hair on her kili-kili! Yecch! Blecch! Ewwww!" I whisper to my four-year-old sister Tisha, who is too busy splashing about in the water with her tiny little hands to care. "Yecch! Blecch! Ewww!" she squeals, followed by a fit of giggles. Shes copying the way I talk again. I dont think she even knows what Im talking about. But never mind. She looks so cute in her orange bikini I want to bite her.
Tisha hasnt been listening to me lately. She should, because Im her Ate, but these days shes just been such a bad girl. Even Yaya says so. Suwail, she calls Tisha. Last year, in the sandbox in school, when I told her the Family Secret she just kept on shoveling sand into her little yellow pail. She was making a castle for her Princess Barbie doll.
"Tisha, Ill tell you a secret but you promise not to tell, okay?"
"Okay." She pressed her little palms to pack the sand into the pail and inverted it onto the ground.
"Swear to God? Cross your heart and hope to die?"
She crossed her heart with her left hand while patting the roof of her castle with her right.
"You know why Mom was crying again last night?"
"Cause she was sad?"
"Yeah, but do you know why she was sad?"
Tisha just shrugged. She poured some water from her Thermos on her castle to make it more siksik. I wanted to scold her for wasting her cold drinking water but I was too busy telling her the secret.
"Dad had a child with another woman! We have a half-brother! His name is Diego!"
She didnt even look at me. She scooped sand again into her yellow pail. Then, she got sand from the pail with her shovel and put it into her Thermos! Into her drinking water! "Mwahahahahahaha!" she laughed an evil laugh like The Count on Sesame Street. "Sand Juice! With ice! Yum, yum! Want some, Ate Tanya?" She finally looked up at me and smirked.
Tisha isnt listening to me either today on this very hot day at the Olympic-sized swimming pool at the YWCA, which is filled with lots of children who look negro already from their swimming lessons. The little girls bathing suits are not very nice, not like mine and Tishas, which Mom bought for us in Rustans. Mine is a pink one-piece with big yellow flowers and a bumblebee. Tishas is an orange bikini with plastic yellow rings that hold the bra in the middle and on each side of the panty. She chose it herself. Shes so arte talaga. The little boys are so magulo and their swimming trunks just look like ordinary pambahay. I think they go to public school because theyre not speaking in English. And the water smells funny, like Clorox mixed with sweat and rubber from their ugly black salbabidas. Were on the side of the pool in the corner facing the street me, Tisha and her Diegos mom, our swimming teacher, Hairy Kili-kili Woman.
"Its okay with you?" I heard Dad say last week when Mom suggested we take swimming lessons with her. I almost said "Ewwww!" out loud but I covered my mouth. "Why not?" Mom replied. "Youve always wanted the girls to learn how to swim, right? Shes as good a teacher as any, I suppose. At least shes someone we know," she said. "Ang bait mo talaga," he said and smiled.
She wasnt always that kind to him about her. Last-last year, another one of Moms crying and fighting sessions with Dad woke me up. I ran to their room and saw her trying to grab a yellow Kodak envelope from Dad. "Let me see! Is that the kid? Let me see!" she yelled. I had never heard her shout at him before. I could tell Dad was very angry because his bushy eyebrows formed one straight line, like Berts on Sesame Street. "Give them back!" he yelled back at her. Their agawan became very rough. I got scared. Then, I got even more scared when Dad caught me peeking by the door and yelled at me, too: "Tanya! Go back to your room!"
Dad used to be nice, especially when he would tell me bedtime stories about Achilles and his heel and Medusa and her snake hairdo from his old brown Greek Mythology pocketbook. Or when hed show me the great paintings of the world from the Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia like the "Mona Lisa" or the dark blue and yellow swirly one like in the song Starry, Starry Night. But lately, especially after Tisha turned two, he began to yell more and more often. Especially when we touched his things. Once when I got his giant brown Swingline stapler from his study table because I needed it to staple my assignment for English and I forgot to return it, he started screaming at the whole house. He yelled, "Sino bang punyetang kumukuha ng mga gamit ko?" and started throwing things. But I was only borrowing it! I just forgot to ask for his permission. I was too afraid to return the stapler, so I hid in my closet and buried it under my clothes until I was sure he was gone. Later, I returned it when he wasnt looking.
Last February 14, Mom didnt even come home at all. That day, we made greeting cards for our parents in art class with red art paper. I cut out two big hearts and glued them on top of each other and wrote "Its Valentines Day!" on top of the hearts using red Pentel Pen. But when I got home and Mom wasnt there, I got worried. So I wrote "Please dont fight!" on top of "Its Valentines Day" and put the card beside their dinner plates. I waited and waited for Mom to come home until I fell asleep. At midnight, I woke up and ran to the dining room. Their plates were still there, untouched. Maybe they went out to dinner together and didnt see my card! So I got the card and went to their room. Dad was sleeping alone in their bed. Even if I was scared he might shout at me for waking him up, I tapped him on his back and gave him the card. I started to cry. "Wheres Mom?" I asked. "Dont cry," he said, "she slept in your Tita Alices house." I didnt ask why. He let me sleep beside him. When Yaya woke me up to go to school the next morning, Mom still wasnt there.
Maybe Mom decided to be kind now because Tita Alice told her, "Just kill him with kindness," when Mom confessed to her and my other titas, the wives of Dads brothers, that Dad had a kid with another woman. They were all in the garden pretending to look at Moms orchids. They thought I couldnt hear them from where I was by the swing, but I could. I pretended to fix my favorite Raggedy Ann and Andy knee socks because their elastic parts were so worn out they kept rolling down. I had to put rubber bands on each knee and fold the top of each sock over to keep them up.
"Ang bait mo naman," my Tita Mary said, "Okay lang sa yo?"
"Wala kong magagawa, eh. Hes always wanted a boy," Mom shrugged. My other titas just kept quiet and looked away. "Eh, I couldnt give him one. Look o," she pointed to Thea, our six-month-old baby sister in Yayas arms. "Another girl," she sighed. "Wala akong laban."
We are in the part of the pool near the stairs, and Hairy Kili-kili Woman is putting on her bathing cap. Its like a shower cap but tighter and made of rubber. Its bright green, matching her one-piece bathing suit with lots of leaves and flowers. Maybe her long, thick, curly hair, which Yaya calls "kinky," couldnt fit into the cap, thats why she had to wet it first to make it more flat. Thats how I first saw her kili-kili hair, which is also curly like the hair on her head, when she put her hands up to pile up all her hair on top to put the cap on. Ewwww. Her kili-kilis look like little curly porcupines. Maybe they need bathing caps, too. I imagine how that would look and start to laugh.
"First, we will learn how to do bubbles," Hairy Kili-kili Woman tells us, leading us deeper into the part of the pool that says "3 FT." The water reaches up to my kili-kili and almost up to Tishas neck. Tisha jumps up and down in the water and claps her hands. She loves bubbles. H.K.W. laughs, plants a kiss on Tishas cheek and jumps up and down with her. Ewwww. I flash Tisha a sungit look and try to make my eyebrows meet, but she doesnt mind me. Theyre holding hands in the water, and H.K.W. reaches out to me so I can join their circle, but I just stare at her and put my hands behind my back.
Okay, her name isnt really H.K.W. Its Amihan. Amihan Marquez. Shes a painter and a water ballerina. Mom told me this one night last year. I was on the floor in my room gluing pictures of flowers I cut out from her old Good Housekeeping magazines on bond paper for my "Flowers of the World" project in Botany. I thought she would get mad when she came into the room because I made so much kalat and spilled Elmers Glue on the floor. I was about to cover the gluey spot with a piece of bond paper so she wouldnt see it when she suddenly sat down on the floor with me. She didnt see the spot at all. Her eyes were red and she was wiping her sipon with a Kleenex. "Tanya, I have to talk to you," she said, looking very serious. I wondered what I did wrong. Uh-oh, maybe I forgot to check if the magazines I was cutting were really old! Then, she got up and pulled me towards her. "Come with me," she said and led me to the door. "Where are we going?" I asked. "To Aristocrat," she said. "Lets have a midnight snack." It was only nine oclock.
Mom, Tisha and I go to Aristocrat for breakfast every Sunday after hearing Mass in Malate Church. Its near our house on Carolina Street so we just walk. Dad stopped going to church a long time ago. Mom says hes an atheist, which is someone who doesnt believe in God. Mom says when he was a little boy he was a sacristan in their church, but when he became a grownup he stopped believing in God. Thats why Tisha and I study in the Learning Community where they dont teach religion. Mom wanted us to go to a Catholic school like Assumption, but Dad said no. He said he wanted us to learn to think for ourselves and not according to any religion. Thats why when my cousins asked me to show them my First Communion picture and I said I didnt have one, they laughed at me. Mom said not to mind them. She lets me take Communion anyway, because I like the taste of the Body of Christ.
"But Mom," I whined, "I have to change first. Im just in my pajamas and chinelas!" "Thats okay, lets go, come on!" She almost yanked my arm off. Thats when I knew something was really wrong. She never allows us to leave the house unless were dressed nicely. We cant even play outside in our slippers. We have to wear shoes.
I ordered my favorite Chicken Honey and a Choco-Vim. Mom wasnt hungry. She just asked for tea. It was very different in Aristocrat at night. There were no children like on Sundays, no vendors in front selling balloons and colored popcorn and pet chicks and colorful maya birds in bamboo cages. Just negra-looking women in very short skirts wearing a lot of makeup, making landi to foreigners. I tried not to stare at them too much. I think theyre called Hospitality Girls. I see them hanging around the go-go bars when the school bus passes by Mabini Street. While waiting for our order, Mom told me.
"Youre a big girl now," she began. No, Im not, I wanted to say, because when we form a line "according to height" during flag ceremony, Im just Number 2. "And youre very smart for your age," she continued. Oh, okay, maybe she meant I was only eight and already in Grade Four. All my other classmates were ten. "So I know its time for you to know," Mom said, trying not to cry. She said Dad still loved us but he wanted a baby boy so badly that he had to find another Mommy for it. Mom said all she could make was girls like me and Tisha and Thea. But she said Diego, our baby brother, was very cute and we would meet him soon and he might stay with us during the weekends. She said not to tell other people, that it would be our Family Secret. Yaya later told me that Amihan was a kabit and Diego was an anak sa labas.
I tried to cry like Flor de Luna. I blinked my eyes very hard, waiting for tears to come out, but nothing came out. So I just embraced Mom and stroked her hair, which only made her cry more. I didnt know what to do. The Hospitality Girls were looking at her. I said "Shhhh " like I see in sad movies on TV. I felt like I was the Mommy and she was the baby. By the time my order came, I had lost my appetite, so Mom just told the waiter, "Take home."
Tita Amihan (Mom told me to call her that, but I still cant say it out loud) is still smiling at me even if Im suplada to her. Her teeth are very big and white, like her eyes. Maybe they look so white because her skin is so dark, not like Mom, whos fair like me and has singkit eyes and short, straight hair like mine. We always have our hair cut in the same style in the beauty parlor, the Page Boy. Its the same hairstyle in her wedding photo with Dad, where she looks so pretty in her Princess gown and he looks so handsome in his Amerikana, I swear they look just like a movie love team, like Susan Roces and Eddie Gutierrez or Gloria Romero and Juancho Gutierrez in the Sine Siete movies Yaya lets us watch every afternoon before our siesta.
Tisha looks more like Dad, dark and curly with big eyes. Yaya told me Tita Amihan looks like a Jeprox, like Sampaguita, because shes always wearing long, loose clothes with no bra and doesnt comb her hair whenever Yaya picks up Diego from their apartment every Saturday to bring him to our house. Once, when Mom heard me calling Tita Amihan a Jeprox, she got mad and said its not nice to call people names. She explained that Tita Amihan was an artist and probably a hippie, thats why she looked like that. Mom said Tita Amihan was the one who painted the big blue-and-green painting in our sala. Thats what the A.M. in the bottom corner of the painting meant all along Amihan Marquez! Well, its not really a painting of anything. It just looks like a jigsaw puzzle. Dad told me its called an abstract, but he didnt tell me she painted it. It used to be my favorite painting in the whole house and I used to copy it all the time in my sketchpad with my Cray Pas until I learned the Family Secret.
Well, I think she looks a like a bomba star. Like a negra Vivian Velez doing her sexy "Body Language" dance on Discorama on Channel 7. They have the same body, like in the rhyme the boys in school love to recite: "Wow sexy, Katawan Pepsi, Coca-Cola body, Lawlaw panty!"
Vivian Velez is also always bra-less. When she dances, she squirms and wiggles and her big boobs jiggle around, so Tisha and I laugh and copy her wriggly worm dance while singing, "When youre moving next to me, I can feel your body heat, so come on move a little closer, let me feel your body heat " Whenever we watch the show every Saturday night, Tito Boy, Moms younger brother, points to her nipples making bakat under her tube top and says, "Hayop!"
Right now in the pool, Tita Amihans nipples are also making bakat under her wet bathing suit. She also wont stop smiling at me. I hate her stupid smile. Whats she so happy about anyway? I suddenly remember that I havent seen Mom smile in such a long time. Shes always sad and crying or mad at Dad. "Okay, girls, who can show me how to inhale and exhale?" Tita Amihan asks. I raise my hand automatically like I always do when I know the answer in class. Tsk! Whyd I do that? Oh well. I wont smile na lang. I show Tita Amihan and Tisha how, drawing in air through my nose and making my stomach small, then breathing the air out, making my stomach big. "Very good," Tita Amihan exclaims and claps. "Now, we are going to make bubbles by doing what Tanya did but under the water. Lets blow out air through our nose and mouth. Lets pretend were sea lions. Do you know what a sea lion is?" I roll my eyes. Sus! Of course I do! I learned it in Zoology. Does she know its a mammal? Tita Amihan sinks down into the water, and when Tisha sees bubbles form on top of her head, she gets excited and copies her right away. Soon, theyre both jumping up and down in the water again, making lots of bubbles and laughing when they come up. "Wow, Tisha, youre a nachural!" she says, pronouncing natural with a "ch." Its just like the way Dad says pizza pie with a "ch" and supermarket and stupid with a "sh" instead of an "s." Theyre looking at me, but I just stand there with my arms crossed in front of me.
"Come on, Tanya, try it!" Tita Amihan calls out to me.
"Yes, Ate Tanya, try it, its fun!" Tisha squeals.
It looks pretty easy, but my feet are glued to the floor of the pool and I cant move. Its so noisy, I cant concentrate suddenly my ears have turned bionic and I can hear the kids in the pool talking, laughing, screaming and splashing water all at the same time. I stare at Tita Amihans curly porcupines. Maybe theyre baho like the anghit of the high school boys who play basketball in our school gym sometimes. I force myself to try. I bend my knees and crouch down until the water comes up to my chin, then I stop. Im afraid to taste the water thats been touched by her kili-kili hair, so I press my lips inwards very tightly to seal my tongue in, then continue crouching down until my head is completely under the water. But I forget to close my eyes! Ouch! The water goes inside my eyes and stings them, so I shut them very tight. I forget to exhale, so the water goes inside my nostrils, stinging them, too. Ouch! I jerk up and come out of the water. I start coughing and sputtering. My eyes are still shut tight and Im pinching my nose because its so painful, like the time a grain of rice got stuck in it. Even my throat hurts. Tita Amihan rushes to me and puts her arm around me. "Oh no, Tanya, are you okay?" she asks. I struggle away from her grasp and grab the hand railing. "Im fine, leave me alone," Im sungit to her again as I wipe the water from my eyes and smooth back all the clumped wet hair thats all over my face.
I want to quit and leave the pool, but I cant. Im trapped. Dad wont pick us up until five. I never wanted to be here in the first place, but I was afraid that Mom and Dad would fight again if I complained. Who cares about swimming anyway? Only Dad does. He says we have to grow up to be survivors. "One day, youll be on a boat that will sink. What if you dont know how to swim? In life, you either sink or swim!" he always says. Dad grew up near Bauang Beach in La Union, so he learned how to swim at a very young age. He wants us to be like him, and even if were girls, he wants us to learn things like riding a bike and karate and sports. He got so angry last summer when Mom, Tisha and I came back from the YWCA and she told him she enrolled us in Hula and Tahitian dance instead of swimming because all the classes were full when we got there. "Hula? Tahitian?" he screamed at Mom. "Anong lecheng kaartehan na naman yan? Thats not a survival skill! Its just a waste of money. My money!" I got scared. He was already mad at Mom for enrolling us in ballet classes. Dad grew up poor and had to sell newspapers and shine shoes to put himself through school, thats why I think he wants us to have a hard time, too. Whenever he sees us with a new toy or new clothes or shoes, he says, "When I was your age, we never had enough money for those things. We had to work to save up money for what we needed." He says we might become spoiled brats if we get too used to special stuff. But Mom used to be a folk dancer, so she wanted us to learn dancing, too. She said we would have good posture and become graceful. I make sure Dad never sees me and Tisha practicing our dancing, and I always hide our ballet shoes and grass skirts under my bed. I know that if he sees them hell remember our dance lessons and get mad again. Im always afraid to make him angry. He might get so mad and leave all of us and make a new family with Tita Amihan and Diego. These days, when I hear his car horn honking whenever he comes home early at night I grab Tisha and we run to my room and hide under my bed. But thats not too often, because usually by the time he gets home were already asleep.
Dont worry, Tanya, youll get the hang of it before you know it! Lets do something easier," says Tita Amihan. She leads us to the gutter and tells us to hold on to it with both hands while stretching out our arms in front of us, then to let our legs float to the surface and kick our feet behind us. "Kick from your knees with your toes pointed," she says. Thats easy, we learned how to point our toes in ballet. "Pretend the top of the water is the roof, and youre breaking the roof from below with your feet." she says. As Tisha and I kick the water-roof, I remember that Tita Amihan is a water ballerina. Mom told me she was an Aquabelle in Sulô Hotel, where theres an underground restaurant with a huge glass window with a view of one side of the pool so the people eating could watch the Aquabelles do water ballet. Ive always wondered if thats how they met. Maybe Dad was eating there and saw her in the window like the Little Mermaid and fell in love with her. Or maybe he saw her nipples making bakat under her bathing suit. But Im too scared to ask Mom. It might make her cry again. I wonder why Dad doesnt want us to study ballet when Tita Amihan is a ballerina, too. Well, sort of. I want to be a ballerina, too, but the real kind, onstage.
"Now, girls, slowly put your face in the water, then try to release your hands from the gutter and kick backwards. Dont worry, Tanya, you can close your eyes first. Inhale, exhale." I look at Tisha. Shes doing it already just like that, she can swim! Without touching the gutter! And her eyes are open! I cant believe it. How can she be so brave? Im surprised that I can even put my face down in the water, but I cant let go of the gutter. Every time I try to let go, one hand at a time, just when Im almost there I change my mind and cling to it again. Its like Im glued to the gutter with Elmers. What a scaredy cat!
Soon, my legs are tired. I stand up to see Tisha and Tita Amihan smiling again and looking at me. They must think Im stupid and hopeless. "Keep trying, Tanya," Tita Amihan says. "You can do it, Ate," Tisha shouts. I roll my eyes. Why does she have to make kampi? Arrrggh! Why cant I do it? Im not stupid, Im bright! In school they call me a prodigy. I can learn anything! Even this! Maybe if I learn this stupid thing we wont have to see Tita Amihan ever again, and Dad will forget about her and our family will go back to normal. The sides of my tummy hurt. So does my head. I really just want to go home. But I cant give up or shell think Im stupid.
I shiver in the water but decide I will keep trying even if my fingers are all wrinkled like prunes and manhid. On my tenth try, just before I stand up to give up, I feel Tita Amihans hands on my stomach. "Relax," she says, "relax your legs and put your face back in the water again," moving me in the water towards the middle of the pool, "and let me teach you how to float." Im so tired, I have no strength left to put up a fight. Her voice is so gentle I feel like Im being hypnotized. I become a very obedient girl and surrender to her. I can feel my whole body turning very straight in the water, touched only by the palm of her hand. Before I know it, my eyes have popped open without the water stinging them, and I can see the blue floor of the pool. It looks like a page from my math notebook. I imagine numbers on each tile and try to solve a math problem. But there are no numbers, just dark, skinny legs attached to ugly bathing suits running around underwater. All of a sudden, its very quiet. No noise from the public school children, no crying Mom, no yelling Dad. Its like a very nice dream. In my head I can hear my favorite Church song, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me " I always wondered what "peace on earth" was like. Maybe its like this. Just me and the water and no noise. My body is moving forward like a slow submarine. Nothing is touching me anymore except the water, and I feel like Im in a cradle. A water cradle thats rocking me to sleep. I can hear someone saying "Shhhhh " and its not me. Its Mom! "Shhhhh " she says, and Im back to being the baby again. I make bubbles without even trying.
After a while, my eyes begin to feel very heavy so I try to make them open wider. The floor has become even bluer, and more peaceful. When I look around me, there are no more skinny legs touching the floor! Where did all the children go? I look to my right behind me and see green flowers and leaves attached to a body attached to arms attached to armpits with hairy porcupines! Its not Mom whos rocking me, its Tita Amihan! I wriggle away from her and move the opposite way. I look to my left and see "6 FT" written on the wall. I panic when I remember that the last time I got measured in the doctors office, I was just four feet tall. I struggle to get up and lift my head out the water, but my body shoots downward like somethings pulling me from below. I drop lower and lower near the blue floor. I cant breathe. I cant make bubbles. Im sinking.
I really want to cry but I cant underwater. Then, from out of the blue, Aquabelle swoops down to rescue me from the floor like Aquaman on Superfriends. She grabs on to my waist and wrist and pulls me up to the surface zooming through the water like a torpedo. I gasp for breath, coughing and spitting out water. She lifts me onto the pools edge, where Tisha is dangling her feet in the water with a very worried look. "Are you okay?" Tita Amihan asks, throwing a towel around me. "Why did you panic? You were floating already! You were really doing well, Tanya! You didnt have to worry. I was right there beside you. Just trust me, okay? Next time, you just have to trust me." I just stare at her. Then, I look at the big clock by the lifeguard tower and say, "Its almost five oclock. Dad will be here soon. My Mom is waiting for us at home." I get up and run to the ladies shower room, forgetting to bring Tisha along.
When we come out of the YWCA, Dad is already waiting at the entrance with Diego. His face lights up when he sees Tita Amihan in her loose, white backless dress. I dont think he even sees me or Tisha until she runs to him and shouts, "I can swim, Dad! I can swim!" He smiles, then looks at me. "How about you, Tanya?" He looks back at Tita Amihan, who gives him a strange look like they have a code. I say nothing, except "Wheres the car?" He points to the parking lot across the street. Hes so busy looking at her that when I say "Can I have the key?" he just hands them over without looking. I leave them and walk towards the car. When I turn around, I see Dad and Tita Amihan holding a squealing Diego in between them, swinging him back and forth with their arms while they talk. Ive never seen Dad laugh and smile so much. He looks so happy. Not mad like he usually is at home. Tisha wants to join them and tries to squeeze in, so I run back to get her and force her to come with me to our car.
"Tisha, get in the back of the car!" I order her. "Ate!" she whines but obeys me. I think of joining her in the back seat, but I worry that Tita Amihan might sit in front, and thats Moms seat. So I sit in front instead. If she wants, she can stay with Tisha in the back. I sneak a look across the street again. I catch Dad kissing Tita Amihan on the lips. Then, she walks away from him in the opposite direction with Diego. Dad crosses the street to join us, alone.
When we get home, it is almost six thirty, and Mom is standing in front of our gate carrying Baby Thea, right under the lamppost. In the ray of light shining over her head, I can see a cloud of lamoks flying on top of her hair. Shes wearing her pink Chinese silk robe on top of her pambahay and just chinelas, and has a kawawa face the kind Tisha makes when she knows shes about to be spanked. Shes wiping her nose with a Kleenex again. I wonder how long shes been waiting for us? She didnt have to stand out there in the street why didnt Yaya just call her inside the house when Dad honked the horn? I suddenly feel very sad. We didnt even think of buying any pasalubong for her!
I dont care if Dad gets mad, I run out of the car to her and hug her tight. She smiles down at me and asks, "So, can you swim now?" I whisper, "I didnt learn Mom, shes not a good teacher!" And just before Tisha can shout from the car window, "I can swim, Mom!" I whisper to her again, "Please dont make me take swimming lessons with her again, Mom. Please." She kisses my forehead, then Theas, and nods.
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