Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir(41)

Manong Bidoy hovered his net over the newborns.

“No, don’t!” I said, pulling the net before it trapped the purring family. “I’ll keep them.”

“Bad luck, Neng,” Manang Biday said, grimacing.

“But look at them. Even Milo likes them.”

Milo had joined the cats. He licked the tops of their heads and sniffed their bottoms.

“What do we do?” Manong Bidoy said.

I walked over to my chest of drawers, pulled out Tachio’s old swaddle, and said, “They can live here with me, in my closet. Paolo was right—we have a bigger problem than these cats.”

“Bahala ka,” Manang Biday said, hands up in the air. Suit yourself and do what you will. She raised her prayer hands up to the sky and said, “I wash my hands clean of this.”

“Before you go, can you do me a favor? Can you bring some food for the mama cat?”

“Ayay!” she said, scratching her head. “Fine. But let’s hope that birthmark of yours is strong enough to cancel this curse.”

I held up my left hand, folded in my thumb, rubbed it over my birthmark, and smiled. “Palad.” Palm, and also, luck.

I let the tabbies and toms cradle and grow in my cubby of clothes, and I fed them condensed milk from Manang Biday’s kitchen. I told them stories. I read them books and entertained them with Milo’s and my tricks. “Bravo! Charlie! Bravo! Delta!”

I swaddled the kittens and pushed them up and down the corridor in Tiffany’s buggy as Milo trailed closely behind.

I sang to them, passing on my own lullaby and luck. They were my sunshine now.

I called them mine and grew my own family. Regretful of having shot neon BBs at the mama cat, I gave her a soft chin scratch, rubbed behind her ears, and stroked her from forehead to tail. I named her Lucky.



Halfway through summer, as I revolted at Norman downing a half-dozen donuts for breakfast, Mama surprised me with a brown paper bag that had something chirping inside. I suspected something was at stake.

“A little gift for you from us,” she said.

“What for? My birthday isn’t until the end of the month,” I said, glancing at the brown bag resting next to my plate.

“An early birthday present,” she said, then paused. “Since Paolo is no longer living with us.”

“What do you mean?” I raised my voice, bringing my hands from my lap to the table. I held my breath.

“He’s moving in with his real dad. Not your papa, but my first husband.” She explained that the man she had left for Papa had wanted custody of Paolo. And now that he was too much of a burden for her, she had to let him go. She waved her hand in a big swoosh, encouraging me to look around the breakfast room: a muggy space with paint peeling off walls, cracked cornice, spiderwebs, chandelier shades holding dead bugs, and rattan chairs with loose reeds and sticks that had come undone from the weave.

“You can’t expect me to take care of this house by myself. I need all the help I can use. Paolo has turned into a vegetable. An expense.”

Norman interposed. “Rule number one in this house: if you’re gonna live here, you better be useful. Look at Elma’s family. They get to stay because they contribute.”

My lips trembled.

Mama said, decanting the last drop of gin from the flask into her tea, “I can’t help him get better, but his real dad can.”

“He doesn’t even know his dad.”

“I said, I can’t help him get better.”

“Better?! I don’t even know what better means anymore!” I snatched the brown bag from the table and huffed and puffed upstairs. I blustered into Paolo’s bedroom. “Kuya! Where are you?”

I threw the brown bag onto Paolo’s bed and rummaged through his things. I looked in the trundle and behind the TV. His clothes, bags, and vinyl collection were gone. Heat once again balled up in the pit of my stomach, and I wanted to scream it out. But as I was about to let out a cry, the brown bag shook and tipped over. Out popped a yellow chick, its head turning from side to side, one degree at a time, its beak pronouncing something small and sweet.

In exchange for my brother, my mother had gotten me a baby chicken—round and small as my fist. The chick stared at me, its neck stretched long and its yellow feathers beaming brighter than the tropical sun. It looked happy to see me, eager to know who I was. I knelt down close to the bed and offered my hand. It hopped on, pecked it, then chirped.

Not knowing what else to do, I gave it a name. “Hi, Tweetie.”

The coquettish tilt of his head, the fluff of the feathers on the back of his neck, his darling winks and blinks, and curved, dull claws fit not in the fighting pit, but in a children’s board book.

I lay on the bed and it waddled to the crook of my neck. It stayed there, its fuzz warming my throat and absorbing the tears seeping from the corner of my eyes.

“Bye, Kuya.”



I spent the last days of Philippine summer, the end of May, acquainting the mammals with the bird. We all slept in my room and shared the tray of food that Manang Biday brought up from the kitchen. Sometimes Manang Biday stole chicken feed from the back lot for Tweetie. We played house and war. When I walked, they followed me like a train caboose. When I showered, Milo jumped in with me, Lucky licked her kittens and herself on the bath mat, and Tweetie swam in the sink. The dog slept next to my bed, the cats in the closet, and the chick on my chest. They became my motley crew, my family.