I told her not to go to the meet-up with Red Dragon 143. But my sister was the Queen of Stubborn, and she gave me the slip. To this day, I couldn’t believe I fell for the old pillows-under-the-blanket trick.
If only I had looked closer.
If only I had protected her better.
If only I had been more understanding.
If only…if only…I could go on and on.
But she could be difficult. Like that
morning after Christmas.
She had kept ranting about her cheating ex-boyfriend. “After all we’ve been through, not even a lousy text message,” she stabbed her phone to recheck. Then like an afterthought, she said, “This came for you.” She pushed a bottle of Princess by Vera Wang, liberated from its box and gift wrapping.
A glance at the gift tag told me it was from one of my more persistent suitors.
I glared at my sister. “Hands off my stuff.” I snatched the perfume bottle. “And don’t waste your time on that horrible, two-timing ex.”
“I just need to show him I am desirable,” she said, biting into a greasy burger and scratching her pimply face. (Who orders food delivery a day after Noche Buena?)
“Going out with every loser guy in Manila won’t solve your problems,” I said with the disdain of someone who had seen the parade of clowns she dated.
“Oh, says the girl whose idea of a catastrophe is one zit on her forehead.”
“How about you lay off those burgers and fries.”
“Whatever, Miss No-Boyfriend-Since-Birth.” She said, bits of ground beef spewing from her mouth.
I stormed off.
Days later, her body was found on a grassy lot in Caloocan. A red ribbon was tied around her neck, like she was a ghastly post-Christmas gift. It was December 28, 2014, Holy Innocents Day. At nineteen, she was just a baby. The family favorite.
Nanay fainted when two police officers showed up at home, asking us to identify a body. Tatay had to look after her, so it was I, all of 21 years old, who went to the Station. One of the officers was a woman with a strange name. Her colleague, a much older man with a shock of white hair called her Mother.
“I’m Mother Teresa Dela Cruz,” she said, with no trace of irony.
On any other day, I would have laughed out loud. With a mole on her nose, PO2 Mother looked like a menacing witch, nowhere near the kindly Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
In the room that reeked with rotten flesh, PO2 Mother lifted the blanket covering my sister. I stifled a sob. Her face was waxy. Her milky eyes stared at me in terror. The hair on my nape stood on end. If only I had been a better sister, she wouldn’t be here. I lifted my trembling hand to close her eyes, but PO2 Mother grabbed my arm.
“Don’t tamper with the body.” Her voice was surprisingly gentle.
In the interview room, Mother was the “good cop.” She seemed to absorb everything I said. But oddly, she didn’t write anything on her notebook.
“Aren’t you going to write down any of what I told you? The Hard Knocks Bar, Red Dragon 143, Pinoy Andrew Garfield?” I couldn’t contain my frustration.
“It’s all here,” she said, patting the side of her head.
White-hair cop nodded, as if confirming his partner’s eidetic memory.
“Still, please, please, look into Hard Knocks Bar…”
“Yes, we will,” White-hair cop interrupted, frowning.
On the 28th of January and February 2015, red-ribboned bodies of teen-aged girls turned up around Caloocan. Reporters camped out on our street, but my parents refused to speak to them. Several times, I wanted to talk to reporters, to counter all the inaccuracies, and sensationalism, but thought better of it. For a couple of months, it seemed as if the media pressure would push the police into more diligent investigations. But after the initial frenzy, those murders were relegated to oblivion, overshadowed by shenanigans in Congress and higher places. Even PO2 Mother lost interest. She mixed up the names of the victims. I guess her memory was more idiotic than eidetic. Then she stopped taking my follow-up calls.
Nanay was never the same after that. She refused to eat and speak. Every day, she either cried or stared at some distant point in the horizon. I wondered if she would mourn for me that way. She died the following June, pining for her baby. Tatay died a month after. The doctor said they died of broken hearts. I drowned my sorrow in chips, cakes, alcohol, and yes, burgers and fries. I began to understand how soothing those things were. I might feel empty, but at least my tummy was full. Pretty soon, I couldn’t fit into my size “S” clothes. I started living in over-sized T- shirts and sweatpants. Those clothes were so liberating. I engaged only in freelance remote work and avoided socializing.
Marinating in my grief, I supplemented my bereavement therapy of a salt-sugar-fat-diet with visits to psychics, seances, and anyone who could help me talk to the dead and tell them I was sorry. Infinitely and abjectly sorry. At one point, I had become obsessed with going back to that night in 2014. Crazy? Maybe.
But after ten years, I finally succeeded.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” She asked in her hypnotic voice, her well-shaped eyebrows arched.
I almost said, not really. But she was so intense. And anyway, what did I have to lose? I had no one. Not even a cat.
She regarded me with her dark luminous eyes. “This should not be taken lightly. Are you sure you want to do this?”
I nodded with all the graveness I
could muster.
She fixed me with her eyes and unclasped her hands, showing me two tiny bundles, one slightly bigger than the other. Both were wrapped in leaves. They looked like nganga to me, and I started to have doubts.
“This anting-anting will take you to that night.” She gave me the larger bundle. “And this,” she held up the smaller one, “will take you back to the present.” A pause. “This is a bonus.” From her pocket, she took out a small piece of what looked like a nut with its shell on. “If you get hurt, bite on this right away.”
I squinted at her offerings, especially the maybe-nut. Was it like some sort of cyanide pill, like the one a movie villain would take when captured? And what about those leaf-wrapped anting-anting slash nganga ? Would they really send me to 2014 and back? I’d paid for a number of bogus amulets, incantations, and what-nots over the years. Nothing ever worked. No Back-to-the-Future adventures, no Time Traveler’s Wife interludes, no Terminator thrill rides. Would these work this time?
But instead of asking, I said, “Thank
you, thank you,” bowing like a desperate car bubblehead.
Now, back in 2014, in our old house with the crazy-cut marble floor, the twinkling Christmas tree, and the country-style kitchen, I had surreptitiously spiked my sister’s favorite drink. It was another faddish organic concoction guaranteed to make her lose weight. She was knocked out in a flash. I wanted to see my parents one last time, but I remembered they were out with some friends. So I headed to the Hard Knocks Bar, with a vial of Strychnine in my pocket, to hunt for a tall guy who looked like a Pinoy Andrew Garfield (her words, not mine.) He would be wearing a red button down. (I told her, “Come on, who dresses like that? He must be a psycho. Please don’t go.”)
It was a quiet night at Hard Knocks Bar. Maybe I was too early. Maybe this time-travel thing couldn’t really work. Maybe it was silly to think I could play God and prevent the deaths of my sister and two others (The Red Ribbon Trilogy, as the media dubbed the murders). My resolve faltered. But then I recalled the constant anguish over my sister’s murder, the deaths of my parents, and the guilt. I was supposed to take care of her. This was the only way I could keep her away from Red Dragon 143 and certain death. It was not as if I could continue drugging her every day. So I waited.
He swaggered into the bar as though he owned it. He looked nothing like Andrew Garfield except for the mullet-style curly brown hair poofed on top of his head. And, oh, yes, the bushy brows. He was dark-skinned with a slightly flat nose. He sported a spiderweb tattoo on his right hand, something my sister failed to mention. He did wear a red button down like my sister said he would. (How could the cops miss this clown?) My heart banged against my ribs. I waited for him to get settled on the stool, and check out himself on the smoky glass facing the counter. When the bartender had served Brown Andrew, I approached him.
“Red Dragon 143?” I used my husky voice. (I could sound seductive when I wanted to.)
He turned to me, smiled, and said, “Yes. Sunflower 98?”
I smiled back and plunged the syringe
on his side.
But he was quicker than he looked. He twisted away and grabbed my arm. To my horror, I was not as agile, stealthy or strong as I was once. In the scuffle, I caught a glimpse of my mirror image. Oh, shoot! I had travelled back in my 31-year-old body. A body rendered flabby and slow by excessive drinking and self-recrimination.
He seized the syringe and aimed it at my neck. I ducked as fast as I possibly could. With all my strength, I head-butted his stomach. He doubled over. He banged against the counter, face twisted in pain. His arms spasmed. I had managed to nick him after all. The Strychnine was starting to work on him. I could see everything in HD precision, his pulsing muscles, his widening eyes.
Then a second brown Andrew in a blue button down appeared, just like magic.
I blinked. It was just a trick of light. He was shorter and uglier, with a hairy birthmark on his left cheek. He, too, had a mop of curly brown hair.
I reached for my leaf-wrapped anting-anting and swallowed it. Short Andrew came at me wild-eyed, his large hands vise-like around my neck.
“You stupid bitch, you killed my brother!” He squeezed harder.
I perked up, even as I felt life leaking out of me. I had managed to kill him. Mission accomplished! But, oh, my God, I was still in 2014, fighting for every breath. I could barely move my arm to reach for my maybe-nut, in a last ditch attempt to escape harm. The spasms began. Brown Andrew must have grazed me with the needle. To make things worse, the smaller leaf-wrapped anting anting did not work. I was trapped in 2014.
My vision was fading. “Anyway, I killed him,” I cheered myself up. As I spiraled into the void, my heart jumped with a joy that I had not felt in a decade. It was a joy so deep and satisfying, I couldn’t help smiling in the darkness. I had died to save my sister and parents. Now, I could put all of the If Onlies behind me:
If only I had been more understanding.
If only I had not been so jealous of my parents’ attention.
If only I had not betrayed her.
If only we (her ex and I) had not cheated on her.
