Homecoming

She knew where everything was -- the piano, the old reading lamps, the weathered garden set. It was as if she flashbacked into the past, for a split second, and then she saw beyond the thick blanket of dust and white cloth that covered everything. She was all alone now, officially. She had just buried her last parent. Her brothers had settled in another country, never wanting to see Manila again. She had come back for no particular reason, but having no particular reason was as compelling as having one.

"Oh hello."

Someone, in a white flowing veil, snuck out of the doorway at the far end of the hall. The little girl stared back with her dark eyes.

"Hello," the little girl answered.

There was a jasmine flower stuck in the girl's ear. Missa felt the scent soak into her skin, the fragrant air dropping a few degrees colder. The girl started to walk very small, unsure steps toward the woman in front of her.

"You're back," the girl said.

Missa walked toward the girl, confident and business-like, as if meeting a new client.

"Well, I don't know for how long. How are you?" Missa asked. She even offered her hand to shake.

The girl scratched her nose and looked at the ceiling. What could possibly be more interesting than the spanish lamps hanging up there, she must have thought. "Your parents, they're all right, you know," she said.

Missa gazed at the girl. Then her hands trembled at her side; her chest tightened as if a balloon was inflating, wanting to burst her open into a mess of shattered organs, limbs, body parts. Her knees fell sharply to the floor. The pain was too much.

The girl clutched Missa's arms quickly-- she was very near her now. Missa shivered in her own tears, tears she kept from escaping when she went to the hospital to see her mother fading, shrinking into her bed. These were the same tears she hid with dark Gucci sunglasses at her father's burial.

"You shouldn't worry too much, Missa," the girl said again. She stroked Missa's hair with her pale bony hand, then wrapped her arms around Missa's grieving body. A few days from now, the girl thought, her friend will be back to her old self.