Attached to the main house, but only accessible
by way of tsinelas-clad feet. First is the step from seamless white tile to
concrete, steep enough to stumble. I certainly do, despite the wooden
door frame. More than once. If I can manage two, three near-misses in less than
eight days, how much more Auntie May, Lolo Badong, all my mother’s
family who can truly call this house home? But this is
Guinobatan, town small enough for a guarantee that someone will
hear and catch your fall. Tread down, turn left, look up,
in wait lies the stairs: drippingly steep, tropical heat
kissing every inch of skin. After the peeling, off-white incline, the door
latch—untouched for seven years. The last time I passed by. Inside:
musty. The first word that wafts through my nostrils, like
nothing else in hyper-sanitized suburban America. Naturally, dust
overlays everything. Lolo Badong’s steel bookcase, hundreds of titles on
philosophy and religion and Filipino history. How I wish that but a
quarter of them could fit into my suitcase, a priceless inheritance for the
ride home. A murky-eyed Beanie Boo, sooty and sitting
silently. I apologize for the seven years of solitude but never take him home.
To my home. This, now, is his. According to my mother, this room is really
Uncle Padi’s. Padi for priest. Everyone calls him the humblest, most
virtuous person they know. I’ve christened him my living patron saint.
When his days of white t-shirts and plain sandals and
‘xtraordinary service are over, he’ll have only the room of his
youth to return to. As hallowed as this tower may be, the
zone of true peace lies on the balcony. Admittedly, it’s not quite
a tower’s grand lookout, more so one rooftop among many.
Between chiseled stone rails and the ceiling of our suite,
clotheslines sway softly, awaiting embroidered panties and skinny jeans to
dry. The ghosts of my mother and Lolo Badong linger in the
evening air. When she was the youngest daughter and he was her
father. Even the crumbs of their conversations haven’t lost their taste:
grades, God, the tangled threads that lie at a small town’s
heart. Or not. A decade later, she followed her sisters to the stars, hence why
I stand here today. Here: made in America, 24-hour flight to Manila,
jumping the meridian between tomorrow and today just to
kiss my lolo’s age-spotted hand, to light a candle at my
lola’s locked tomb. But I am a country divided, a house united unto
myself: my heart, too, haunts the tower suite. An archive, a lighthouse.
Never will we be too far to meet again.
Christine Novelero is a creative writing student at Kinder HSPVA in Houston, Texas. She is a Scholastic Writing Awards Gold Key winner. Her writings have been published in Scribere, The Weight Journal, Voice & Virtue, and others. Outside of writing, she is a chaser of sleep, a dancer at heart, sister to three cats, lover of soft things, an unwitting seeker of metaphor, and a passionate volunteer.
