On the day of my twelfth birthday, my father took Janice and me to see an action movie that showcased the new projector tech the Giants brought to Manila.

I can't recall the name right now, but it was about a group of shoplifters who turned into professional heist artists and eventually became terrorists. We were seated in an empty room that came to life with projections. Everything, from the sets to the characters, the car chases, and shootouts, played before us with gigantic AI actors surrounding us, taking us along for the action like curious flies. It zoomed us around, showing the action from different perspectives, and knew when to zoom out to let us see the whole scene play out.

To my left, Janice gushed over two of the male leads. She cheered when the gang formed and cried when the Philippine National Police formed a barricade around the last man and peppered him with bullets, all to a heart-strung orchestra. She was completely immersed, and I would have been too if it were not for my father’s stone face, his lack of emotion, and his sneering not at the torture scene or explicit sex but at the exposition and the dialogue. He barely reacted throughout the film, and I had previously thought he wasn’t enjoying it. Now, I know there was more to it.

“You know your uncle was a part of that gang,” Papa said once we found our Grab pulling itself up to the curb. The three of us sat in the back, putting our backpacks in the shotgun and driver seat.

“Uncle Joseph wasn’t in the movie,” said Janice, referring to our favorite of Papa’s six brothers. He was our favorite because he was the only one who still spoke to us.

The Grab pulled out, following Papa’s phone directions. “I wasn’t talking about Uncle Joseph,” Papa said. I was referring to Uncle Nestor.”

Uncle Nestor was as distant to us as Cleopatra, both in space and time. He and his children lived in Davao City, and they seemed to enjoy life there from their Facebook posts. Then again, that’s how everyone seemed online. Not once had Uncle Nestor responded to my birthday or New Year’s greetings, and eventually, I would stop trying altogether.

He barely spoke to my father either, and when they did, their phone calls were always heated. They were always fighting for reasons I could not tell, and these exchanges became the color of my extended family: red and orange like fire or rage.

“Really?” asked Janice, turning to face my father sitting between us.

“They never became terrorists,” said Papa, “but they did some high-end crime during the early 2000s. Do you know he was on Duterte’s hit list?”

I froze, blinked at my papa, and shared in my sister’s stupefaction. “Then why isn’t he in jail?” I asked.

Papa shrugged. “It helps to know people. It’s… essential.” He shook his head. Then, as if the conversation never happened, “Why did we see that shitty movie anyways?”

Janice could have watched someone be shot for all the shock she displayed. “Papa! Lewis Romero is a great actor!”

“I didn’t know it would be like that,” I said, siding with my father.

“Well, it was,” said Papa, shrugging. It always is. It’s more rehashed garbage from Hollywood. I figured out the plot from the first scene and tried to keep myself awake for the rest of it. That was a more entertaining story.”

He launched a comprehensive critique of the film, its cinematography, and its clunky exposition that treated its audience like they were five years old.

“It’s not meant to be literature,” said Janice. “It’s meant to be action.”

“But that’s all there is!” said Papa, his voice rising as if on the phone with Uncle Nestor. “It’s all romance or high-action thrillers with lots of shooting and no substance! Hollywood isn’t the medium for art.” He eyed his daughter. “No, honey, that wasn’t art. That was crap.”

I could see Janice was holding back from crying, hopelessly attached to a man on the screen she never would meet. That, or a general upset against a parent who disagreed with you. Either way, she folded her arms and remained silent for the rest of the ride home.

Papa was too harsh on my sister, and I’d tell her that later, but while she watched the city crawl slowly by in rush hour traffic, I bumped my father on the shoulder. “You’re right,” I whispered.

I didn’t say it because I believed it—not entirely—I said it because of the look my father gave me, the one I felt I had to earn in other circumstances. Here, he could have been looking at another version of his past self, not the one he regretted, but the one that made all the right choices.

He put a hand through my hair and messed it around. I didn’t mind. “Well,” he said, “Maybe even the bad ones are worth watching, depending on what you learn and who you’re with.” He smiled, and my father’s approval of me made any movie obsolete.

He apologized to my sister before the car pulled into our barangay, the small neighborhood that felt like its own little community. If Janice falling asleep on his shoulder hadn’t been a clear indication she had forgiven him, allowing Papa to carry her inside our house was.

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Memories like those returned whenever I spent time with my father. I tried to remember the man he was years ago when his long-winded arguments of the merits of popular film and TV were more interesting than watching the subjects of those arguments. Now, standing at his bedside, I felt I couldn’t reconcile the man he was now and had been before. They were two different people, and I would forever be stuck with a memory.

I arrived home late, already missing my friends. Andrei, Reggie, and Shay had been the only people I talked to outside of Janice and a few high school and college friends, who never remained in touch for long and only reached out when they needed a godparent or money. I just read their messages and ignored them.

Papa snored in his bed, the loud and rumbling sound that assured me he was still alive.

Janice was gone that night, studying with her friends at a Jollibee or Yellow Cab Pizza—at least, that’s what I remembered. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had lost my job at TelePerformix and that she’d have to bring something back for Papa to eat. My shame seemed to eclipse my guilt. I was too proud to say I was incapable.

I woke up Papa long enough to feed him what remained of the chicken adobo I had bought on the way back from the meeting today. The familiar tang of vinegar and soy sauce filled the room as he shoveled it down without saying a word, without acknowledging I was even there. I started to wonder if he could even see me or if he had accepted me as a phantom butler who brought him his meals and nothing more. Maybe this was an evil cynicism loved ones felt towards their dying family, as they slowly succumbed and stopped remembering who they were, and yet still required all the effort in the world to care for them.

As soon as I felt that, I paced. I didn’t want to despise my father. I loved him. I would hurt myself before I hurt him, then and now, regardless of what he would say should happen now if he could communicate.

I lost myself in job postings, searching for entry-level telecommunication positions, drivers, food couriers, cleaning, and even nanny positions. No one would hire a man as their nanny. No one trusted adult men with their kids. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t like kids, but I didn’t like seeing Papa starve either.

I was in the middle of updating my resume when the front gate scraped open. “Shoot!” Janice cried out.

I ran down, expecting the worst, and found Janice standing over a plastic food container. “It’s still good!” she yelled. The container was closed. “Help me pick it up!”

I did, and I took Janice's bags. They were heavy with Greenwich carbonara, breadsticks, and spaghetti.

“Papa’s favorite,” she said, holding a platter of still-warm lasagna. “Let me take it up to him.”

Thank God she had found food. It would last at least two days, and during that time, I could find another job or continue stealing from the Giants by myself. I had to do something.

I stood there dumbfounded at the food before me and did the math. “This must have been 2000 PHP or more,” I said. It would have taken me a week to earn that much by Giant Killing. I shoveled down a box of carbonara myself, almost using my hands to eat, until I thought more about what was happening. “Where did you get all this food? You don’t have a salary.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Janice shrugged. “Never mind it.”

I didn’t, at least for the first few minutes, until I thought of particular possibilities.

Janice wore a black dress and heels tonight, not her school uniform or casual clothes. Despite her university still requiring them, she carried no textbooks, either. She had come home with just food. I had not given her an allowance this week to buy the food.

“I thought you went to do homework,” I told her.

Sitting across from me on the floor outside Papa’s room, her mat of a bed behind her, she creased her brow. “All online.” She kept her head down, avoiding my gaze. “It was easy.”

I saw now that she was wearing her earrings and a ring on her finger that Papa had once said belonged to Mom. “You never wear that.” I pointed at the talisman of my dead mother’s past. You never dress like this.” I made an apparent study of her face. “Lipstick, not gloss? Foundation? Eyeliner? All this to study with friends?”

“What do you care?” She frowned; maybe seeing that question was an admission of guilt.

But I didn’t wait for her to admit anything. In full view to show Janice, I checked her Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and every other social media page I knew of. “There’s nothing,” I said. “No stories. No Days. No boomerangs. No reels. Nothing.” I flicked through more photos, just to be sure. “You didn’t post? You always post.”

Janice searched the innards of her mouth with her tongue. “Didn’t feel like it tonight.”

“Weh?” I exclaimed, my heart thudding. “You want me to ask your friends where you were tonight?” I never delved this much into Janice’s life, but my earlier thoughts put me on edge.

Janice stopped without putting any food into her mouth, and it was then I realized she hadn’t eaten anything since she came home.

“You’re full,” I told her. “You already ate.”

Janice breathed out. “We ate while we studied.”

Despite this reasonable explanation, I couldn’t contain my thoughts.

I said what came to me first. “Are you a walker?” I looked her up and down. “Where did you really go tonight?”

I felt myself a marites, a curious neighbor searching for scandalous gossip, and that my sister was the subject. I took a mental step back, but it did little to calm me.

Janice, however, was fuming. “How dare you.”

“What?”

Her teeth clenched. “You’re an idiot, Jayson. I’m not a prostitute. I wouldn’t stoop that low, ever. I have morals.” She placed her food down on the floor gently. “It’s not nice to accuse me of stuff like that when you don’t know anything. Don’t judge me.”

“I wasn’t judging you. I was asking.”

“No, Jayson, I know you. That was an accusation.” She shook her head, looking like she was bottling up what she wanted to say. “Do you think you’re the only one who can provide for Papa?”

This rocked me. “I am.”

“No, you’re not. When’s the last time you gave me money?”

I considered and searched the past. “We had money from Papa’s accounts before it ran out.”

Janice clenched her teeth. “That wasn’t even enough for schooling.”

I frowned as more implications came to me. “Then how did you pay for your schooling?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

Janice leaned forward to stare at me, and in that moment, her stern face could have belonged to the mother I never met. “I am not a walker or a prostitute or call girl or hooker or whatever you call those things, Jayson. I’m not lying to you.”

I couldn’t believe this. “Then what is it?”

Before I could proceed, Janice showed me her phone and brought up her Facebook page. She adjusted her privacy settings, and a bunch of pictures appeared at once. I had never seen any of them before. “These are private between me and him.”

“‘Him?’”

She scrolled down, showing reels and pictures of herself and a man who might have been twice as old as her. They were sitting together at restaurants, riding Jeepneys together, walking down Luneta Park together, and standing beneath a waterfall together. I didn’t know how to make sense of all this.

“His name is Bryce,” said Janice. “We’ve been a thing for almost a year now. You would like him.”

Bryce. It wasn’t the most normal Western name, but it wasn’t Filipino. “A thing?”

She nodded and handed me her phone. I zoomed in on photos and opened videos of her and this strange foreigner. “How old is he?”

“In his forties, I think.”

“You don’t know?” I asked, leaning in closer.

“We don’t talk about it often,” she replied.

“Why not?”

Janice frowned, catching on to my curiosity. “I’m not here for chika,” she said, dismissing the casual gossip I seemed to be fishing for. “I want to tell you where the money came from.”

I had been glancing at a portrait photo of the man when I paused, holding my fingers in the air. The two couldn’t have been a more opposite pairing. He was at least eighteen inches taller than Janice. He was built, sure, but he looked like he had been plucked out of a company’s IT department. He looked, honestly, like a sex tourist.

I searched for the words, thinking how to address the unspoken point. “So this man… he’s been helping us? He put you through school?”

Janice nodded. “We have been talking for over a year. He’s nice.” She looked down. “He doesn’t hurt me.”

What a situation to give the absence of abuse as a reason to stay with someone. “You’re not that desperate,” I told Janice, but even I heard the pity in my voice. I was a faucet of words spewing anything I could think of.

“Desperate?” Janice eyed me. She poked me on the chest, and it could have been a shank. “I would never take anything away from Papa now. We can’t rely on him, Jayson. He can’t even rely on himself.”

“How did you even meet this guy?” I asked. “On a dating app?” I wasn’t seeking the truth, only releasing my anger. “What have you done for him? It’s not right to take money from foreigners. You’re falling into a stereotype.”

Janice’s eyes went wide. “I’m a stereotype?” She held back before striking. “You fit a stereotype too, Jayson: the aimless, unemployed, worthless pile of shit stereotype. You gave up after graduating from university when you realized you needed more than book smarts and good luck to succeed. Do you know that stereotype, Jayson?” She looked like she wanted to throw her food at me. Instead, she took her first bite. “I’m doing what I can for us, okay? Pretty soon, after I graduate, I won’t even be here.”

I froze. “What?”

Janice looked elsewhere. “It might not happen, but if things go well, I will leave.”

I knew she wasn’t talking about moving out or leaving the city. Of course, who wouldn’t want to leave the Philippines? You could quadruple your pay in another country doing the same job.

It dawned on me then, as such things do, when you’ve discovered your current predicament is the result of hundreds—thousands of choices you made along the way to get there. My sister had chosen a career path and was sticking with it. She was entirely correct that I had given up. My sister had friends, whereas I did not. Not really. My sister may have even found someone to care for her, to love, and I had not. I wasn’t even 25, but some could have said my life was over.

Unless I did something.

I composed myself. “What if you could make enough money here? Would you stay?”

I thought Janice would snap back and refuse. Instead, she thought. “Of course.”

“Really?”

“Mhmm.” She nodded. “But money is important.” She did not look away. “Would you be alright?”

It didn’t immediately register that she was referring to the future and not now. “I’ll have to be, won’t I?”

She shrugged and then did something she hadn’t done in a long time. She leaned forward and hugged me. “I know you will,” she said and pulled away.

More thoughts would plague me later, but this discussion strengthened my appetite. I was happy to eat.

First, I opened my father’s door with a plate full of his favorite lasagna, steaming hot. I felt I was a head chef for a king, ready to appease him. I forgot that a man I hadn’t met had paid for this food. If Janice was telling the truth about him and herself, then that mysterious figure was a kind soul.

“Papa?” I asked. “Janice brought food. Your favorite.”

I paused.

Papa was there, as he had been, but not wholly the same. He stared not at the ceiling or me but at the side wall, and at first, I thought he was sleeping. I would have to wake him to eat. I tried.

“Papa?”

I felt his shoulder, his chest. He was breathing, but he wasn’t responding to me. He wasn’t looking away from the wall.

My first instinct was to shout for Janice, but maybe he really was sleeping. I placed the plate down and moved to the side of the bed, where a ream of papers and the electric typewriter had fallen. Papa never let them fall.

“Papa?”

Still nothing.

I called for him again, and again, and again. I was like some hopeless cat prodding its sleeping owner. No, he was not sleeping. I tried to think of other explanations, but I was no doctor. An acceptance crept towards me, but I ignored it.

Janice stepped in and snapped me back to reality, as she often did, while I stared down at him and the pages that had fallen to the floor.

Before, my father’s writings were nothing but gibberish and useless sentences—characters strung together. Now, at the end of his outstretched hand, on the floor, were words—many of them.

Janice called the ambulance, and I stared at those pages and wondered.