In which Adriel begins to get hints of dark secrets in the family.

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“Mom, I'm going down to see Myra,” I told my mother the next morning at ten o'clock. I had found her in her new garden, happily grubbing around and planning her orchidarium and rose garden. She said nothing, only nodded, so I started down the lane.

A woman was watering the flowers in the front yard of the Flores house when I passed. I stopped to admire the African daisies and babies' breath, all in full bloom. Three rosebushes adorned the center of this miniature garden, and a bougainvillea bush was off to one side with a small bench in its shade. A few pots of dendrobium orchids hung from a low railing and provided a sort of backdrop.

The woman looked to be about Mom's age, beautiful with unusually fair skin, thick long straight hair with no white strands caught up in a bun, and eyes like Michael's, only darker like Celia's. I supposed she was Michael's mother, and every negative thing I'd heard about her notwithstanding, she seemed to be a good gardener by the looks of her plants, all healthy and blooming profusely.

The woman looked up.

“Oh, good morning, Auntie,” I said, returning the smile. “I was just admiring your flowers. They are so pretty.”

She smiled back, though vaguely.

“Thank you, dear. I haven't seen you before, but you look familiar. Do you live near here?”

“Yes, Auntie, we moved here just a few days ago.”

“Where?”

“Up there, on the hill.”

“Ah, the old de los Santos place?”

“Yes, Auntie.”

“What did you say your name was, dear?”

“Adriel, Auntie. Adriel de los Santos.”

Her face clouded over briefly.

“Who's your father?” she asked.

“Alberto, Auntie.”

“Oh, Alberto!” She looked thoughtful. “When did Alberto get married? The last time I saw him, he was still in college. Whom did he marry? Arianna, I suppose, no one else. Why didn't Alfredo tell me about it? I must remember to ask him the next time he comes.”

It took a few moments for her words to penetrate my brain, but when it did, chills began running down my spine although it was a hot day. Especially when she added, “Imagine, not telling me about his own brother's wedding!”

My Uncle Alfredo was Dad's oldest brother and lookalike. But Uncle Freddie had been dead for seventeen years!

“Uh… Auntie… Uncle Freddie's already dead, isn't he?” I blurted out, which wasn't the most tactful thing I've ever said in my entire life.

Her face crumpled like a baby's.

“Freddie's dead? Oh, my God, yes, Freddie's dead.” She repeated this last to herself almost wonderingly. She stared at me with blank, unseeing eyes. “Freddie's dead, and he never knew, he never believed me, he never will… I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I didn't!!! It wasn't my fault! Freddie, forgive me, it wasn't my fault, please believe me…”

I could only stare at her, shocked. I wasn't even thinking straight. I didn't know what to do! I put out a hand.

“Auntie, are you okay? Please don't be upset…”

At that moment, Michael came around the side of the house, saw his mother, and rushed towards her.

“Nanay, are you all right?” he asked. “Hush now, hush, everything's okay, everything's fine, we're here,” he said soothingly, as if he was talking to a baby instead of his own mother. “Celia? Celia!” He gently removed the dipper his mother was still clutching, and steered her into his sister's arms. Without a backward glance, Celia guided their mother into the house.

Then he turned on me, his eyes flashing.

“What did you do to her now? Haven't you de los Santoses hurt her enough already?” he snapped.

Now more than ever I was totally bewildered. Hurt her? How? Why? To judge by her words, she thought she was the one who had done something wrong. My bewilderment must have shown on my face, because the next thing Michael said was, “Oh, for God's sake, Princess, stop acting like you don't know anything. It's not a big secret that Nanay was once engaged to your uncle!”

Princess! Oooh! I hated the way he made the word sound so--- so insulting!

“Well, then, excuse me for existing, because I really didn't know anything about that!” I retorted. “That wouldn't be strange, though, seeing I didn't even know Bagong Silang existed until fairly recently!”

Something flared in his eyes for just a second. I went on angrily.

“I'm sorry about your mother. Ignorance is no excuse, I know, but it's the only one I have. I didn't know that talking about my family would upset her. And why the hell am I apologizing to you anyway? I should be apologizing to her--- you don't deserve a civil word!” And with that I spun on my heel and marched on down the lane in the direction of Myra's house.

About halfway there I slowed down and began moodily kicking at pebbles. Another connection between my family and the Floreses? I didn't care what Myra said. I wanted to know more about this!

“You what?!?” Myra screeched when I told her what had happened. I rolled my eyes and removed my fingers from my ears.

“Oh, come on, My, don't be so melodramatic. What happened to her? She looked normal one minute and the next she seemed totally spaced out!”

“She's nutty! How many times have I told you that? People say she's cursed, too! Every man in her life dies! Your Uncle Freddie left her for another woman, but it was too late. He died the morning of his wedding day. Mike had been born by then, after she'd quickly married Uncle Martin on the rebound. And Uncle Martin's dead now, too!”

“So?”

“Your uncle was a young and healthy man, Lovelove. He was thirty-three! He didn't have to die so soon! They found him in his bed that morning. Dead.”

“That doesn't mean she had anything to do with it.”

“Aside from being cursed? Well, I heard people say that long ago before your uncle died, she had come to see him the night before. Carrying her baby.” Myra watched my face carefully. “Do you believe me now?”

I snorted.

“Curses,” I said, “happen to come true only when the victim wants or believes them to happen. That woman couldn't hurt an ant. From what I've seen and heard so far, I'd think she was a victim, not a villain. I intend to get to the bottom of this, even if it takes me the whole summer!” Yeah, yeah, I know, the arrogance of youth and all that. Perhaps I was envisioning myself a heroine. I didn't really understand then the price that came with it.

“Oh, really!” Myra said.

“Really!”

“Then count me out!” Myra shuddered. “Better safe than sorry. Don't say I didn't warn you, Lovelove. You're on your own in this. You'd better leave it alone! Go home and play computer or whatever!”

I rolled my eyes and sighed some more, but I couldn't get her to change her mind, so I finally gave up. Myra absolutely refused to go out with me, so I left. Allain and Ian were coming down the hill from our house when I let myself out of the de Dios gate, so I stood there and waited for them to come by, planning to go with them to the barrio. Ian had his Walkman, so I appropriated the other earphone and plugged it into my ear, half-wincing at the sound. “Sweet Dreams.” Air Supply, for heaven's sake! Ian and Allain have no taste for any song created in the "90s or later. They like vintage rock and pop, not alternative or hip-hop or RnB, and they don"t even know or care about Oasis or the Smashing Pumpkins!

“Don't you have any Eraserheads or Rivermaya?” I asked. Don't get me wrong, all you Air Supply fans. It's all just a matter of preference. As my friend Charisse would say, “De gustibus non est disputandum,” or in plain words, “In matters concerning taste there is no point in arguing.”

“Whose Walkman is this anyway?” Ian asked, which settled the matter.

I walked into the village in my usual pose when walking with my brothers; my right hand in the crook of Ian's elbow, my left in Allain's.

The usual basketball game was ongoing on the court in front of the cooperative store. It came to a crashing halt, literally, when we arrived. Buddy stopped in mid-jump to stare and came crashing down to earth, landing ignominiously on his backside in the dust. Everyone turned to look where he was looking. I giggled to myself, unhooked one hand and gave my best regal wave, then turned casually towards the store, thanking my lucky stars that I had chosen to wear my yellow capris and ocher-brown fitted blouse. Even if Michael hadn't appreciated the effect, it was good to see that others didn't.

In the next instant, Ian said, “Wow! Who's that?”

Allain and I turned to see what he was looking at. A girl was walking, or rather, drifting, down our lane towards the barrio. As she drew nearer, I could see that her flowered cotton shorts and pink t-shirt were faded and worn. Even then, she was dramatically beautiful and graceful. Her huge dark eyes with long thick lashes and her long, straight, very black hair contrasted dramatically with her very fair, smooth skin and classic features. She walked straight ahead, looking neither to the right nor to the left as she passed the court. Then I realized ours were the only admiring looks she was getting. The others were insulting. Or downright scornful.

Unheeding, she walked straight up to the store.

“One fourth kilo of brown sugar, please, a small refill pack of powdered milk, a small refill pack of Nescafe, and a can of sardines. Mike says please charge it and he'll come by on Saturday.” Her voice was sweet and beautiful, but very cool and reserved. Ice queen! I thought.

“How is your mother, Ciara?” the girl at the window asked brightly as she bagged the groceries and made an entry in a ledger.

“Nanay is fine, thank you for asking, Mely.” She took the groceries and turned away, but by then I had already realized who she was. Really beautiful, but proud and snooty, Myra had said. Ciara Flores, Michael's youngest sister.

As she turned, Ciara bumped right into Ian and dropped the plastic bag. Groceries scattered; blessedly the sugar did not burst open. Ian immediately began to gather them up and put them back into the bag. Then he stood up and gave the bag back to Ciara.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

She nodded, backing away.

“By the way, Miss Beautiful, what's your name?”

She didn't take the time to answer, just walked away, leaving Ian to stare after her with his mouth open.

“I don't believe this. She snubbed you!” I said to Ian as we watched Ciara walk back up the lane. “And here I was thinking you had always had better luck than Allain. Anyway, your style was a little bit common. Did you by any chance remember to put on Axe this morning?”

Ian groaned as he got my drift.

“Maybe Axe has no effect on Ciara,” I continued.

“You know her?” Ian asked.

“Not precisely. Remember Mr. Disagreeable from yesterday?”

Ian's mouth opened.

“You don't mean…”

“His sister,” I affirmed.

Ian struck his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“How can I ever get to know her better?” he complained. “I can't even get past her brother!” He glared at Allain and me when we began laughing, but joined us in the end.

“Hi, Lovelove,” said Buddy from behind me. “You look beautiful this morning.”

I turned to face him. He wore a green shirt and black shorts, and he was twirling a basketball on his forefinger, but less expertly than Michael had done. Unlike Michael, though, he was smiling.

“Does that mean I wasn't beautiful yesterday?” I asked point-blank.

He looked taken aback, then he laughed.

“No, of course not. You are always beautiful.”

Behind me, I heard Allain tell Ian in an aside, “She must've used Axe this morning.” He and Ian chuckled. I decided to include them in the conversation.

“These are my brothers, Allain and Ian. This is Buddy,” I said by way of introduction.

Buddy's face cleared when I said brothers, but he didn't shake hands with Allain and Ian. He simply nodded. Allain had been about to extend his hand but thought better of it and kept his hand at his side. Ian moved up beside me and draped an arm around my shoulders as if to emphasize that we were twins, two halves of one whole. In one of those thought-sharing moments twins have, I realized he didn't much like Buddy, although I didn't know why.

“I see you've met your new neighbors,” Buddy said to me as if we were alone. I raised an eyebrow.

“Ciara Flores?” he clarified.

“Oh, Ciara,” I said. “Why?”

“Did she act as stuck-up as usual?”

I gave him a long look. Much as I had felt insulted by Ciara's behavior, somehow I found myself defending her.

“Oh, not really, I think she's just shy,” I said, and while I was saying it I realized it was true! Ciara was painfully shy. She covered it up by acting proud and distant, sort of like rejecting us before we could reject her. As a result others disliked her.

“Shy? That'll be the day!”

Beside me, I felt Ian stiffen.

“Love, it's eleven thirty. We better make tracks for home before Mom sends Averill to come get us,” Ian hinted.

Buddy looked at him with a frown.

“Well, see you later, Buddy,” I said. Allain, who had been negotiating something at the store window, hefted the plastic bag of purchases off the window ledge and gave Ian and me a 1.5-liter bottle of Coke each to carry.

“Is my hair mussed?” Ian asked Allain as we began climbing back up the hill. Allain frowned at him uncomprehendingly.

“It was a bit windy down there,” Ian explained. This time both Allain and I groaned.

Ciara was standing at the window of their house when we passed by. Ian slowed down to give her his sweetest, most admiring smile. She promptly disappeared from the window.

“You didn't use Close-up,” Allain observed.

“Probably he didn't even brush his teeth, yech!” I said dryly. Laughing and kidding one another, we walked through our home gate.

Averill ran to give me my cellphone, which I had forgotten to bring with me. I tucked the bottle under my arm and put the phone to my ear.

“Hello, this is Adriel. Who's calling, please?”

“Hello, Rye?”

I almost dropped both phone and bottle in surprise. Ian rescued the bottle and shook a finger at me. I ignored him.

“Bryan?!”

He chuckled that throaty chuckle.

“It's me, babe.”

“Hi! You called?”

“You preferred me not to? Anything happen over there in the past three days to change your mind about me?” he teased.

I laughed.

“No, no. I just didn't expect you to call this soon, that's all.”

“I missed you, you know…” he said in that wonderfully low and tender voice that never failed to melt a girl's heart.

“Oh, really?”

“Really. Like Shy, I loaded up, just in case.”

“Oh, Bryan…”

“It's for you, babe, so what's the problem?” he asked in a plaintive voice.

“Nothing. I'm touched!” I heard him chuckle. “So what's up? What are you doing?”

Over the next few minutes Bryan described what the gang had managed to do in the past few days since I had left. To hear him tell it, it seemed they had been more of a riot than usual.

“We're going to the beach tomorrow,” he ended. “Sure wish you could come, babe. Suppose you came up just for the day?”

“Sorry, Brye, no can do. Even if I wanted to, I don't think Mom and Dad would let me,” I said wistfully.

“Shucks. Even only just this once?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry, sweetie.”

“Tough luck,” he said. “Well? You're not bored to death down there yet?”

“I try like hell not to be,” I said softly. “Wish you and the others could come down here sometime.”

“Why not? We can take Connie's van.”

“Really? When?”

“Sorry, babe, I can't say for sure yet. Not now, anyway. We'll all talk it over first. We'll call you when we decide. Promise.”

“That's really and truly a promise, Brye?”

“It's really and truly a promise.”

“Lovelove!” Ian was calling from the kitchen.

“Ian's calling me,” I said. “I guess lunch is ready.”

I could hear the laughter in Bryan's voice.

“That's okay, babe. I think I'm running out of load anyway. I'll just call you again sometime. Eat well.”

“Bye, Bryan.”

“Bye, babe. Love you.”

I ended the call and put the phone on the living room table then went into the kitchen. Mom was stirring something in a pot on the stove. I sniffed the air. Lunch was almost ready.

Ian was peeling potatoes.

“Hey pal, I think this is your job,” he said to me.

“Don't start something you can't finish,” I told him. I was more interested in Mom and Dad's conversation. Dad had been saying something about Uncle Freddie when I came in. I went and sat down near him and Mom, tuning in on what they were talking about.

“What was that about Uncle Freddie, Dad?” I inquired.

Dad shrugged.

“Nothing much. Just that I saw his ex-fiancée this morning. I drove to town for some supplies and she was in her garden with her daughter.” He shook his head. “It had always been a mystery to me why Freddie broke up with her, when he had always been tagging after her since we were little, she was that beautiful. I was only in college then, so I didn't know much about what happened here.” He shook his head.

“Why did they break up?” Ian had only just caught on to the fact that we were talking about Ciara's mother.

Dad and Mom exchanged glances. I could tell they didn't like the conversation, but since they knew we were already a few jumps ahead of them when they were our age, they were always honest with us.

“For one thing, people had always thought that Freddie shouldn't marry her. She was the most beautiful girl in the barrio, but she wasn't rich and she came from a broken home. So nobody wondered much when Freddie finally broke up with her and started seeing Linda Marquez instead. She wasn't as pretty, but she was better off than Mina and she came from a respectable family.”

I felt indignant. How snobbish could people be, even if they are related to you and had already been dead for seventeen years?

“I guess your father and I were the only ones who wondered, because we knew how much they loved each other. Then Mina immediately got married to her childhood best friend, Martin Flores,” Mom said. “They had a son almost at once, and after he was born, well--- people began speculating if the child really was Martin's. Some believed it was Freddie's son.”

This was a shock. Michael--- disagreeable, arrogant Michael--- my cousin? Yuck! I didn't like the idea one bit!

Uncle Freddie, so the story went, didn't marry Linda at once. Michael was almost a year old when Uncle Freddie announced his wedding. But on the morning of his wedding day, he was found dead on a settee on the verandah, presumably of bangungot (nightmares)- a common cause of death according to local belief. His best friend and future brother-in-law reported that Uncle Freddie had talked with Mina the evening before, and that she had told him the truth about her son's parentage, but Mina denied it all.

Dad shook his head. “When I saw her daughter, it was like seeing Mina all over again. She looked exactly the same way her mother did when she was younger, even down to the long straight hair!” he said.

Mom began to tease Dad about having a crush on Mina when he was younger, although Mina was about four years older than they were. We weren't listening anymore. Allain and I exchanged glances then looked at Ian meaningfully- Ian, who resembled Dad the most and therefore must resemble Uncle Freddie too. Ian glared at the two of us.

The moment was disrupted only when Averill came charging into the kitchen to demand his lunch. Conversation abruptly changed tack and the topic of Uncle Freddie and Mina was dismissed.