“She wouldn’t get rid of that painting, huh?” Ronnie asked, smiling knowingly.
I fought the urge to smile back and failed. “Tita Rosie can be surprisingly stubborn when she wants to be. Considering she let me change everything else and get rid of the Santo Ni?o statue, it wasn’t worth fighting about.”
He nodded, a contemplative look crossing his face as he stared at the familiar painting. “Look, Lila. I—”
“Hoy, come help your mother with the dishes,” Lola Flor said, interrupting whatever Ronnie was about to say.
He obeyed without a word, a first for him, and with his help the table was laid out. Not with the typical meat, fried egg, and garlic rice we’d usually have for breakfast but with what I can only assume were the dishes they’d planned for the holiday bash. They chose dishes that were easy to portion out and still tasted OK when cold: the typical pancit and lumpia (vegetarian and with meat) that you’d see at any fiesta, along with two kinds of siopao, Filipino fruit salad, and champorado.
While we helped ourselves to a little bit of everything (Adeena and Elena sticking to the vegetarian dishes), Lola Flor and Ronnie were locked in another battle, with my grandmother trying to make him eat tuyo with his champorado and Ronnie absolutely refusing:
“These go together.”
“I don’t like tuyo.”
“You’re supposed to eat them together.”
“Why would I eat dried fish with chocolate porridge? It doesn’t make sense!”
“It is traditional! Salty goes with sweet, just eat it!”
This went on for a while before I interrupted their childishness.
“You said you had something for us, Ronnie?” I glanced at the time on my phone to show that we were on a tight schedule.
“Oh yeah! Hold on a sec.” He got up and grabbed a tote bag that was over by the hanging coatrack. “I wanted you to try this. It’s a few bottles of our signature cabernet sauvignon as well as the lambanog I’ve developed with our vintner. I know you have a liquor license, so I thought I’d offer you free samples to see if you’d like to stock it at your cafe.”
“Lambanog? How’re you making coconut wine in Shady Palms?” The traditional Filipino coconut liquor was popular, especially around Christmas, but since my aunt and grandmother didn’t drink, I’d only tried it a few times with friends in Chicago.
Ronnie launched into a long story about how he’d met a master lambanog maker in Florida (what had Ronnie been doing in Florida?) and had convinced him to come to Shady Palms so they could introduce the Midwest to the wonders of Filipino-made wine. He also explained step by tedious step the process of making lambanog—something about collecting coconut sap from flowers. I’d zoned out a few minutes into the explanation, the only thing I could focus on was Ronnie’s obvious passion for this subject. I’d never seen him care about anything so much, and that included his own family.
Tita Rosie, meanwhile, was hanging on his every word, smiling and nodding as if she cared about the laborious distilling process and Ronnie’s grand plans to put Shady Palms on the map as a purveyor of delicious and unique wines. Which she probably did, since she was nothing if not supportive and loving toward those of us who didn’t deserve her.
“Anyway, I was hoping you’d have time to tour the winery with me later today. Mommy’s been wanting to see it and I’d love to introduce you all to the Shady Palms Winery team. Our investors are in town and I was hoping we could all show them a good time.”
I hadn’t realized how much I’d spaced out till I caught the last half of Ronnie’s sentence and couldn’t for the life of me figure out how we got from me tasting his wine to entertaining his business investors.
“Sorry, can’t. We’re finalizing the holiday bash menu today and then I’m going into full production mode. Tell them to stop by the cafe though. I’m sure Adeena and I can set something aside for them.”
He frowned. “You sure you can’t free up an hour or two? I really talked up how our whole family are successful entrepreneurs, and they’d love to meet you. I also bragged about the karaoke parties we have, and they really wanted to attend one. I was hoping we could have one tonight.”
My aunt froze. “Oh anak, why didn’t you say something sooner? I have time to visit your business, but we’re also busy preparing for the party and serving our usual customers. We can’t just shut down the restaurant at the last minute to accommodate your party.”
I flinched at Tita Rosie’s use of the word “anak” for someone who wasn’t me. OK, so Ronnie was truly her anak since it means offspring, but she’d been using it to refer to me and only me for over a decade. I didn’t appreciate sharing that term of endearment with anyone, especially not someone who left us over a decade ago and was now glaring at my aunt as if she were the one being entirely unreasonable.
“These are my main investors. Without them, I wouldn’t even have this business or be back in this town. I owe them everything.” Realization at what he just admitted swept over his face, and he clapped his hand over his mouth like a little kid who accidentally said a bad word. “No, Mommy, I didn’t mean it like that! I just, of course I would’ve come back eventually, it’s just that I didn’t want to return with nothing to show for it, you know? I, uh . . .”
But the damage was done. Both Lola Flor and I stood up and walked to Tita Rosie’s side, who was staring at her son as if he’d just insulted her food. The ultimate betrayal.
“If you want to impress your investors, tell them to stop by our table at the holiday party. Now get out of here. Don’t you have work to do?” Lola Flor pulled Tita Rosie up and marched her to the kitchen, not allowing her to stop or say anything.
Elena cleared her throat. “Um, it was nice meeting you, Ronnie. Thanks for the wine.” She met Adeena’s eyes and the two of them left together. I should’ve followed them, but I had one last thing to tell my dear cousin.
“If you’ve turned up after all these years just to break Tita Rosie’s heart again, I’ll kill you. I’m serious. And Ate Bernie will help me hide the body,” I said, bringing up his ex-girlfriend and my cousin/friend. “So you better not mess up this time. Tita Rosie may be all forgiving, but Lola Flor and I aren’t.”
Tita Rosie hurried over with a bag full of takeout boxes, interrupting my threats. “Oh anak, I’m sorry we can’t host your business partners tonight, but please take this for their lunch. Let them know they’re welcome here anytime as customers, and I look forward to meeting them later. Maybe tomorrow after the lunch rush?”
She held out the bag as a peace offering, and Ronnie met my eyes before taking it and thanking his mom. She smiled before hustling back to the kitchen.
Ronnie watched her, his expression unreadable. “I swear to you, Lila, I’d rather die than hurt her again. I’m back for good and my business will be a success and nothing’s going to stop me from proving to my mom that I’m not the screw-up I was when I left.” His eyes hardened. “I refuse to let anything get in my way again.”