I eat at least five of the fluffy bread rolls,
some with cheese baked inside, some with raisins.
Lola says, You like the pandesal?
Yes! I mumble with
bread in my mouth.
We laugh.
Hey, Etan, show them a mailbox picture!
Oh yes, please,
her mom says, sipping her tea.
I take out the notebook,
open to some sketches of the mailbox,
and they point out the different textures,
the way the dragon curls.
Malia flips through pages of doodles,
and I see one from my mom,
a baseball with flowers growing out of it.
Eventually, Malia gets
to the picture of the river,
and her mom and Lola take their time
to read each word, follow every waterline
along the inky banks.
I look at Malia, and I notice
she’s scratching her arm inside her blanket.
I hadn’t realized it
because it’s been hidden,
but I can see the way her arm moves.
She has been scratching almost the whole time.
Etan. I look up at Mrs. Agbayani.
This is very poetic, about your words
and where they go.
I smile. I don’t know how to react.
Her mom flips the page,
and the red flyer unfolds itself.
I reach out and hold it up.
Hmm, a talent show?
I push the flyer toward Mrs. Agbayani.
Oh well. She wraps her arm around Malia.
Malia whispers, He wants me to sing.
We’ll see, her mom says,
but I know what it means
when a parent says We’ll see.
It usually means
I don’t want to say no right now,
but it is no all the way.
Malia smiles at me,
raises her eyebrow up and down
like she’s hatching a plan,
like she has it all
under control.
Just before Mrs. Agbayani gives me a ride
back to my grandfather’s shop,
Malia walks around the front yard with me,
constantly scratching her arm,
and I can’t ignore it.
Is your arm okay?
What? Oh. Yes.
She looks up at the branches of a tree near the road,
gently touches its bark.
Maybe she’s listening to it.
Do you really think I can sing? she asks.
Yes! I say, you’re so good …
She looks back at the tree
and I stare at it, too,
our bellies full of pandesal.
It feels like we both
have run out of words.
Sometimes silence
is just what you need.
A car passes by slowly;
Malia waves. Then she turns to me
with a sideways smile
and punches my arm
just enough to hurt.
Good singer? she says.
I’m a great singer.
We look at each other,
silence,
then we laugh.
Etan, it’s not the singing.
I can’t because—I mean—well, this.
And for the second time,
she removes Blankie slightly,
lets me see her full face.
Oh, I say. I want to tell her
that it doesn’t matter.
She should be herself,
but I know the truth is not so easy.