Any Day with You: Chapters 6–13

"I learned how to make caul fat taste good.”
We all stare back: What are you talking about?
"It’s this thin membrane that surrounds internal animal organs that can be used for baking. Trust me, it’s much better than it sounds.”

Sit at whatever table you want because cliques are dumb.

"Oh, anak, I didn’t show you this to scare you. Please, don’t let bad notions fill your head. I’m well and healthy.”

I don’t want him to leave either, but this was inevitable. He always meant to return one day.

My gaze lands on an old black-and-white square of Tatang surrounded by aunties and uncles and lolos and lolas, standing in front of lush mango trees near his home in the Philippines, fields all around.

Tatang likes telling me the story of how hard he worked for his first pair of nice loafers, which he bought at a fancy store in Manila with money from his first teaching job. He got those dressy shoes and his first pair of high-tops—in bright red.

Another picture stands out: it’s of a young Tatang in his army uniform, wearing thick boots. He’s standing in front of a painted backdrop of trees and staring off somewhere with a solemn look.

Tatang looks so young and vibrant, with the same determined eyes.

I also sketch the siyokoy, part man and part fish; a sirena, a Filipina mermaid; and the tiyanak, a Philippine vampire that takes on the form of the cutest little baby, who cries in the jungle to attract gullible travelers before eating them.

Upstairs a thin sliver of light cuts under Tatang’s bedroom door.

Trey grabs the hand sanitizer hanging from his backpack and douses his palms.

I wave the ube cupcake in front of his face to tantalize his taste buds.

I’m glad she’s taking this seriously; that will lead us to snagging one of the festival spots.

"I love it, Kaia! It’ll be the ultimate coming-of-age sci-fi postapocalyptic dramedy!” Abby says.

First I explain the version Tatang loves about the bakunawa being so intrigued by the beauty of the seven moons that he gobbles them up and causes an eclipse.

"Wonderful! Feels like a classic creature feature to me. Part mayhem, part destruction, with a touch of magic,” says Eliza.

Here’s what I figured out: once an idea sticks, even if it doesn’t seem that interesting at first, it won’t fizzle. It incubates.

"Dave! Get over here!" Abby shrieks across the courtyard, and Dave Conway glances up and scuttles over.

Trey closes his eyes and I get to work, brushing, painting, and sponging. Kids gather, just like when tourists stop to watch artists on the boardwalk. I hope I don’t flub.

My group and I decided that we don’t want the bakunawa’s makeup to seem too bold, but more subtle and symbolic, like our movie.

I show Tatang how to mix my secret concoction of nontoxic gelatin, although not-so-secret, I guess, since I found the recipe online.

“Your bakunawa has a lot of depth and nuance.” That’s fancy for “pretty good."

Dad asks her how it’s going and it sets off Lainey’s happy rambling: how packed with cars Manila is, her surprise and sadness traveling through shantytowns, the green of the countryside, and the roosters that crow her awake in the early mornings.

We walk down a glossy corridor into the lecture hall, which has tiered seating, whiteboards, and a wood lectern.

Mom takes her place at the lectern and I sit in the back like a real college student.

Mom says, “All right, class. Any questions about your reading on the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act?”

Today we have a very special guest speaker. You may have heard me mention him before because not only is he a decorated war hero and an immigrant who has lived and achieved the American dream but, full disclosure, he’s my grandfather.

I was part of a catastrophic event called the Bataan Death March. This was when seventy-five thousand captured allied soldiers—Filipinos and Americans—were forced to march from sunrise to sunset, nearly sixty-five miles across the Bataan Peninsula along Manila Bay in April of 1942. We were not given any food or water. We suffered from heat stroke and starvation. We were physically beaten along the way. Many of my friends died, some of them left to rot when we could not carry them.

"At the end of the march we were crammed into trains and brought to an internment camp. Somehow I had survived to that point, but the camp was torture, too—so many soldiers dying from disease and malnutrition, some beheaded.”

The room smells savory.

After breakfast, Tatang and I meander down streets of palm trees, houses, apartments, and condos, on our way to meet Trey and Abby at the pier.

Tatang scurries off to a ticket window, where he chats with the guy behind the register, a long line of antsy people waiting.

Slowly the cars climb toward the sky, ratcheting up along the rickety tracks.

“Oh my, I have not done anything like that in years. Thank you, children, for indulging me.”

“Please, my dear, tell me exactly what should a man my age be doing? I’ve had too much heartbreak in my life to not revel in the good stuff, am I right?”