16
DREW
“If you stick your finger in there one more time . . .” Ma slaps my fingers with a wooden spoon, the sound a crack against the backdrop of simmering soup.
“Yeowch!” I recoil my hand, fake pain thick in my voice.
Ma grins at me. This is all part of the game we’ve played ever since I was a kid. She loved when I was in the kitchen with her, when I wanted to touch and taste everything. The familiar sounds of something frying, or the chop of a knife against the cutting board, meant a full belly was around the corner.
And what says love more than a full belly? Ma used to say the journey to anyone’s heart was through their stomach. Even someone like me, who sucks at cooking, appreciates the hard work of putting something mouthwatering on the table. Ma made sure I watched, explained all the terms, tasted the food in progress. And guess who always did the dishes? That’s right—me.
So I get that food doesn’t magically come plated and garnished. It takes love to get it there.
“Do you remember the next step?” Ma’s question refocuses me to the task at hand.
“The tomatoes.” I pick up the cutting board where a mound of tomatoes sit. They’re supposed to be diced to generally the same size and shape, but they’re ugly as hell, butchered by my lack of knife skills. I slide them into boiling sauce in the cast-iron Dutch oven, and the sweet smell of the tomatoes mixed with the garlic-based sauce perfumes the air.
And just like that, it’s as if I never left. This morning, we resumed the same family routine we followed every Sunday morning when I was a kid. I ate a big breakfast of tapsilog—eggs, garlic fried rice, and tapa, a marinated and cured beef that beats bacon by a lap. By 11 a.m., I vacuumed out my parents’ cars, swept out the garage, and carried bulging bags of vegetables and fruit from the farmers’ market. Before we started cooking our late lunch, I set the table the traditional way: jute place mats with a fork and spoon on each side. Now, a rice cooker steams from the middle of the table, next to a bowl of fragrant oranges. I am again my mother’s sous chef. Today’s menu includes sinigang, a tomato-fish stew that means something different to every family. It is an advanced dish, the balance of sweet, garlic, the sour of the tamarind broth, and milkfish precarious. It’s also one of my favorites.
Today my brain is paying extra attention to my mother’s instructions. Whenever I attempted to re-create any of my childhood dishes, the result was disastrous: splatters all over the stove, spices and bottles opened and haphazardly thrown into a pan. Food I had to throw away. Since I’ve been away from home, I fully understand how lucky I am to have eaten like a king all my life. It wasn’t only mac and cheese and pizza. It was sinigang, chicken adobo, bangus.
This time I’m determined to learn. Surely, if I can build structures, I can make a fish stew, right? I have an even greater motivation—Camille. She ragged on me that my skills haven’t gotten any better. Something about seeing her eat her words—that would be redemption.
“I’ve died and gone to heaven, Ma.” My stomach growls, empty despite my big breakfast. I can always make room for this. The food and the experience. I pick up a bowl from a stack to the right of her. “All mine.”
“Uh-uh.” She shakes her head, teasing. “Start serving and we’ll call everyone in.”
“Right,” I grumble. I ladle the soup into bowls and bring them to the table. I sneak a spoonful for an initial taste. The sear of heat is immediate, but as I suck in air, the taste of the dish makes its way through. It triggers my salivary glands to work overtime, my eyes to close.
Three years was too long to be away from home.
My mother’s squeeze on my arm is a lot like her hugs: full and firm. “I’m glad you left.”
Her words are a shock of ice on my burned tongue. “You are?”
“So you can come home and be part of this. If you stayed . . . if we made you stay, you would have hated it.”
The candor of her words stings. She and I haven’t talked about my escape to the Army. The reason I’m staying at a furnished apartment rather than their house.
It’s hard to say I cannot be the one to bear their dreams. Still, my defenses answer. “I wouldn’t have hated it.”
“But you would have been angry at us. You would have looked behind your back every day thinking of what could have been. And eventually it would have taken you away from us. Better you left as part of your own decision.”
“Pop sure doesn’t think so.” I know I’m whining. I’m a grown man. My actions are my own. But this is my mother I’m talking to. She always had a way of getting me to spill my guts. “He told me once, and I quote, Your allegiance to the country is bigger than your loyalty to our family. Unquote.”
She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Your father . . . your father is like a scorpion. He’s got a great thick shell on the outside, but on the inside, he’s fragile. Like a scorpion, your father reflects his environment. He rises to the occasion. He’s got no fear. And he protects his domain fiercely.”
“He attacks like a scorpion, too.”
“Ay,” she clucks, her eyes softening. “We are Bautistas. We aren’t vulnerable people, but that came from somewhere. It came from having to start from scratch. Sometimes it came from being hurt. I’m afraid your father has experienced a lot of hurt in his life, in growing this family. But he loves you. To understand him, you have to read beyond his words. Look into his eyes. The restaurant business . . .” Her voice fades.
I nod. Yes, I know. The industry is cutthroat, and I’m afraid my parents are in over their heads. Saying so, though, would show doubt.
“It’s fickle, especially now, with so many new young cooks, like that Lucianna truck. That’s why we’re renovating and why your cousin and friends are helping us. Why we need you.”
Ma’s attention drifts as footsteps come through the hallway. Shadows of bodies, of Pop, Tito Ben, Bryn, and Victoria—the immediate Bautista clan—shroud the kitchen. The round of hellos are cursory, as hungry bodies win out, and everyone quickly finds a seat at the table. After a short prayer, we all dig in. Soon the only sound is the clatter of spoons against bowls.
“I think we should take a picture of this,” Victoria says, her bowl of soup half finished. Tito Ben’s youngest daughter and Bryn’s little sister, she’s a senior at BAU and has worked at True North for as long as she could make rice. She pulls out her phone and angles it. “Everyone, push your bowls together.”
Bowls clank as she finds the perfect composition. I glance up at Bryn, who is eyeing her sister in awe.
“Kuya Drew?” Vic turns to me, calling me “big brother.” It’s customary, familial, and it never fails to wrap me around her little finger. “Can I have the log-in for our social media app?”
“Who, you?” I laugh. I’ve only posted once, overwhelmed at the task of adding contacts and receiving requests. While I admittedly would want someone else to take over—Victoria? She’s a full-fledged adult, true, but to me . . . to me she’s still five, running around with sticky fingers.
“She’s got one of those huge cameras now.” Bryn swipes a napkin across her lips.
“I know. I spoil her. But she’s got talent,” Tito Ben defends himself.
“You are a softie.” Bryn squeezes her dad’s wrist, grinning. “But I agree. Tito Ritchie, Tita Ramona, I think we should let Vic do the social media. She can clear what she writes with you all of course. But this is second nature to her. She knows what’s what. I mean, she’s had her style blog for about a year now—might as well put that communications degree to work.”
Pop entwines his fingers and props them under his chin. “Good idea. That’s one less thing you have to think about, Drew. I have a feeling I’ll need your help with crowd control with that thing in front. Had to call the cops on them today.”
The table stills. “What happened?” I ask.
“One of their customers tried to get into our restrooms out back. Those were locked. So they relieved themselves in our alleyway.”
“Well, shit.”
“Andrew,” Ma hisses.
“Sorry, Ma.” Turning to my father, I ask, “So what are we supposed to do to keep stuff like that from happening?”
“We need to stay on top of it, and—”
A throat clears, and we all turn to Tito Ben, whose face is turned down into his soup. “I’m sorry to be the bad guy here, but as your investor, can we change the subject? This is supposed to be a family dinner.”
“I know, I know. You don’t want to hear about it,” my dad retorts.
“I don’t want there to be conflicts of interest. It’s bad enough I went to your business meeting last week.”
Ma flashes Pop a look, the lull a cue for me to say something. While Tito Ben is usually a pro at neutralizing these conversations, the pained look on his face tells me he needs help. “So you know I cooked this dish, right? Ma just instructed,” I blurt out.
“Yeah, I call BS.” Bryn cackles.
“Iha,” admonishes my uncle. “Your language.”
And with that, the chatter and the slurps continue. The kitchen is permeated with the fragrance of citrus and salty fish sauce permeating the room. Each spoonful of rice and soup fills me with warmth, and for the first time since arriving home, I’m relaxed. Comfortable.
There’s just one person missing.
“My question?” Ma asks, bringing everyone’s face up from their bowls. “Will customers like it?”
“I vote yes,” Tito answers midslurp.
“Oh, oh yes,” Bryn adds. “This is perfect comfort food.”
“And easy to make in front of everyone,” Pop says. “Move over, clam chowder.”
“Add me to the yes vote, Ma. In fact, I’m having seconds.” While helping myself to another bowl from the stovetop, I do something considered unthinkable during a Bautista dinner. I send a quick text:
ME: Guess what I’m doing?
CAMILLE: Should I be worried?
ME: I’m having soup. Soup I made.
CAMILLE: Really? I don’t know if I believe you.
ME: Believe it. My ma only had to coach me . . . a couple of times . . . I swear.
CAMILLE: I hate to tell you, but it sounds to me like your mom actually cooked it.
ME: Hey! Burst my bubble, why don’t you.
CAMILLE: If you say so. I’m now poking you with sharp fingernails!
I shiver, my thoughts racing from food to Camille’s fingernails on my back, digging in as she moans my name. I’ve already got half the memory from the last time we were together. My imagination takes no time supplying the rest.
“Poking you with sharp fingernails?” Bryn bursts out, standing behind me, eyes on my cell phone screen.
“What the hell, B?” I shut the phone down, stuff it into my pocket. She’s deftly balancing three bowls on her arm, with an eyebrow up. Behind her, the rest of the group is staring.
“Pogi was texting. A girl.” Her voice is wicked and teasing. This is sure to bring out the Cupid in every single person in the room. As far as this clan is concerned, I should already have marched halfway to the altar.
“Andrew. A girl. Really?” Ma beams. “Is this the same one from the other night?”
“It must be.” Pop grins. “You know she’s not real until we say she’s real, right? We must meet her.”
“Yeah, kuya. And she’s not allowed to be your girlfriend until I clear her first. Like, what are her intentions for you?” Victoria says.
Tito Ben’s face is in the soup, lips wiggling. “You’re on your own with this one, iho. You know how this works. She’s not only dating you, she’s dating your whole family.”
I roll my eyes at Bryn as she nudges past me. “Thanks a lot.”
“Just trying to keep the conversation light.”
“I’ll get you back.”
“Right,” she whispers, though with a tinge of disbelief, and with good reason. Bryn has always gotten away with everything. Something about that smile of hers makes her untouchable, too. “Until then, be ready for the interrogation.”
I approach the table and ready myself for the barrage of questions. Despite the faux scowl on my face, inside I’m slaphappy. Because if what my ma says is true, I’m back in this family, and my pop and I are okay.