Parting Gifts

Mack Ibrahim

I got the call on the side of the road. I had just finished an eight-week assignment in Norfolk and was heading east to the next one. The trill of the ringer woke me up at a rest stop outside of Cleveland.

The artificial tone, deafening in the dead silence, floated up from the floor of my car’s backseat. It must’ve fallen off the console. I instinctively threw my arm out, groping around with a gloved hand for the tiny block of metal as I jolted awake. When I finally picked up, I felt it in the air, the stagnant pause Ma gave when I didn’t announce myself.

“Nina,” she breathed, and that was that. She said it the same way as when her mother, my lola, died. My eyes traced the stitching of the headliner until it sank in, caught on the thin leather hems of my gloves. Then I climbed into the front seat and, for the first time in nearly a year, headed home.

I should’ve called Ma back, given her the chance to talk about it, or at least given myself that chance. Instead, I called my travel nursing agency and left a voicemail asking them to cancel my next contract. I wasn’t sure what to call the death of an ex-girlfriend, so I left it as a family emergency.

Deep down, I always knew Vera was going to die. That time-bomb. I could see it in the way she threw up after a night out, how she wagged her fingers at me goodbye, as if she wasn’t convinced tomorrow would ever come. Ma would later tell me that she crashed her Beetle into a semi. No note, no warning signs. I wondered if anyone looked at the wreckage, pulled her body from it, and figured out what she was thinking. If they could tell if she had changed at all in the last seven years, transformed in any direction from that passionate, impatient girl I once knew.

I liked to think that we had both changed for the better, but I worried that we had just grown into older versions of what we always were. I’m sure I did, I thought bitterly and gripped the steering wheel.

A few weeks ago, one of the only other nurses I got along with made fun of me for not having had a serious relationship since college. I had tried, of course, with no success. Dating felt like a chore, like raking leaves in the fall. Something you did just to say that you did.

But Vera didn’t feel like a chore. Sure, on weekends, she had to be managed, and she could be hard to keep up with. Was I the chore, then? Someone to placate and pretend they weren’t holding you back?

I tried to nurse my bruised ego as I merged onto 209. The dawning sun started to pour over the landscape, and I felt tears well up—grief, or perhaps frustration, made me finally peel off one of my gloves. The air was disturbingly stale and humid, spilling out of the AC vents as I squeezed my hands into fists and slowly uncurled each digit. I blinked hard and ran the pads of my fingers across the steering wheel, dragging them over the seams and the ventilation holes. Naáalala mo ba? Lola’s voice reverberated in my head, and I let the familiar memory—souvenir, she corrected—wash over me.

“Ready, Nini?” Ma asked from the ground. She was still young. Her eyes shone with the newly found freedom of a woman who had just run away, despite it being nearly four years since she fled Connecticut.

She was lying face-up on a skateboard, positioned to roll under the hood of her prized deep blue T1, one of the few to make it to the States. I stood off to the side with Lola, my shoulder-length hair looped in twin bundles right below my ears, matching my mother’s. Earlier, she had shown me how to check the oil, and now she was narrating how to do an oil change. A second, smaller skateboard lay uselessly next to her, where Lola had prevented me from joining Ma under the car.

The screeching horn of a truck called me back. Before I could touch anything else, God forbid my clothes, I stuffed my hand back into its glove and pushed the glove’s souvenir from the forefront of my mind.

I once tried to explain the souvenirs to Vera, just before we started dating. My grandmother, mother, and I could see something’s history just by touching it. Not all of it, not all at once, but a snapshot, a single scene that changed every time.

Vera had this faraway look on her face when I told her. She wasn’t curious or skeptical like I expected, just nodded slightly and turned away from me to continue her homework. Ma always told me not to get my hopes up, but I had a bad track record of listening to her. I wanted to succeed where she had failed. I wanted to want to love. But would that have made a difference?

I pondered as I filled up my tank outside DuBois. Only four hours left. In four hours, I could rationalize Vera’s death, our past, what could’ve been our future. If I actually figured out how to love her, I would’ve stayed. I wouldn’t have skipped town the first chance I got for nothing. Maybe I could’ve saved her. I pulled the nozzle out and watched a few drops of gasoline glide down the side of the car. They each took their own path, following the curve of the metal towards the ground. Just before they dripped off, they pooled at the very edge and crashed together as one giant drop onto the blacktop.

I climbed back into the car, and as I merged onto the highway, the answer to my question simmered. Even if I had stayed, I couldn’t have stopped her. I wouldn’t have. Her past and present pointed to her future, her life to her death, and I would’ve let it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the toy plush I kept on my passenger seat and felt Ma’s disappointment. I grabbed him and put him on my lap, an unwelcome reminder.

For my sixth birthday, Ma made me Bean the Carabao and gave him to me with a warning: Don’t like it for my sake. Like it because you like it. I didn’t understand what she meant until he was in my hands.

“Naáalala mo ba? Do you remember?” Lola asked excitedly, and I got my first souvenir. In my mind, I watched my mother carefully pick out fabric from the store and spend hours sketching and sewing Bean together. She made him in secret, only working when I was asleep or out of the house. Straining her eyes in the candlelight, she pricked herself over and over with the needle. She stuffed the toy and smoothed out the ragged edges where the seams met. She didn’t bother to wrap it, only kept it in a kitchen cabinet I was too short to reach. I loved him; I loved it all.

“But why?” Ma stressed. “Is he cute? Soft? Squishy?” He was, but that didn’t matter. He existed because Ma loved me. He was Ma. Her face fell when I told her.

“Ba!” Lola brushed her off. “It’s just a gift. Nini can like what she likes.” Ma looked like she wanted to say something, but she blinked and swiped her palm—ungloved—over the couch cushion instead. The art of knowing when to concede.

I arrived back in Kunuhakink in the late morning. Contrary to its name, it doesn’t snow here much, at least not anymore. The roads were long and bendy, like a half-conscious scribble on paper. I found them difficult to navigate, which Lola used to take great pleasure in making fun of me for. I could hear her raucous laughter with every turn I took too fast.

A few miles from the house, I passed the closest thing we had to a downtown: a plaza with a grocery store and an everything-else store. When I was a kid, the lights of the everything-else store flickered constantly. I slowed down, opened my window, and studied the storefront. If I squinted hard enough, I could still see it. Satisfied, I swerved into the left lane and stuck my hand out, slapped the plaza’s old sign, and left an imprint in the salt buildup.

Up the street was my mother’s mechanic and hardware store. It was probably the only spot in town that was cleaned regularly. During the summer, Ma used to sweep, sometimes even vacuum, the small parking lot. “Appearance matters,” she would say while struggling to find an outlet that wasn’t blown.

At home, I parked on the grass of our front yard. There wasn’t enough space in the driveway for Ma’s two cars and mine. Before walking in, I looked over the small shotgun house, at its peeling paint and slight steeple. Nothing’s changed, I reminded myself and opened the door.

Ma sat on the living room floor with her sewing machine on the edge of the coffee table. White fabric flowed off the table and onto the floor all around her, like spilled milk. Without looking up, she asked, “Did you gain any weight?”

I sighed and kicked off my shoes. “What happened to ‘hello’ or ‘I missed you’?”

She ignored me. “How much weight did you gain?” Her gloved hands fed the machine steadily. Her rehearsed composure would’ve fooled anyone but me. Making mourning clothes was never easy for her. I sat down beside her and nudged her to move.

“None, Ma. I’ll take it from here.” I finished the skirt she had started on, folding pleats on the garment. I tossed it behind me onto the couch where it joined Ma’s and worked on the subtle embroidery for both our camisoles and white shawls.

Meanwhile, Ma set up the rest of the house. She dug out the funeral votives from the shed and plucked white lilies from the garden. In the living room, she slowly picked up the scraps of fabric I had left, her back creaking on the ascent.

When I finished sewing, I grabbed a wet rag from the kitchen and went to the backyard.

“He’s already been fed,” Ma called out, “so don’t give him anymore.” She sniffed as she arranged the candles in a circle on the ground, interspersed with the flowers. “And get Lola’s box too.”

I faltered at the doorway. I forgot that we would be adding Lola to the ceremony, and Ma was not asking. We hadn’t talked about it, but there was no room for negotiation since I refused to participate when Lola died.

Outside, Pig the pig waddled happily towards me, lifting my mood. Years ago, Ma and Lola bought him to make lechon. They spent weeks digging the roasting pit, but I loved Pig from the moment I saw him. That little brown baby, rooting around for food and attention. I refused to let them cook him. They refused to let me name him.

“Oh, Pig. Are you all fat now?” I rubbed Pig’s ears and watched his tail windmill around. He followed me to Lola’s grave, a massive pear tree at the edge of the yard where her ashes were scattered. Ma had made a headstone out of sheet metal and nailed it to the trunk: CORAZÓN CABANGON ALLOS 1923-1994.

I wiped the rag across the headstone. Pollen collected in the grooves of the engraved letters, lighting them up in a dusty yellow. Pig dug his nose into the soft ground and wandered with me to the shed where I found Lola’s box. Back in the house, the box joined Vera’s momentos where Ma had lined them up in the center of the circle. My mother and I sat on either side of the line for the ceremony.

We took off our gloves and started with Vera’s things, Ma and I at opposite ends. I picked up a faded blue hairbrush and shut my eyes.

“Here,” Vera said, tossing the brush onto my bunk bed. She returned to towel-drying her hair. I blinked at her in the mirror, and she rolled her eyes playfully. “Every time you stay over, you forget to bring a hairbrush. Relax, it’s from the dollar store. You can keep it here.” She tapped the top drawer of her dresser twice.

I flipped the brush over in my hand. On the back was an ugly printed flower, its petals stretching unnaturally in all directions. The handle felt small and awkward in my grip. She had gotten me a kid’s brush. I smiled softly and took my hair out of its ponytail.

I put the brush back down. The souvenir was from before we started dating. I touched the ends of my hair. Wavy, grown in, just past my shoulders. I tried not to get too attached, but Vera used to put little braids in it that even Lola liked. When the ceremony ended, Ma and I would shear our heads, so for the last time, I made a small plait behind my left ear. I tugged on it, readjusting, then looked over to Ma. When Lola led the ceremony, she had us all share something about the souvenirs. Ma hated it and vowed to do away with the practice. True to her word, she sat silently now, contemplating the item in her hands. I picked up the cassette.

We were driving on the interstate to Cape May for spring break. Vera was asleep in the passenger seat, her arms hugging Bean and her head tilting toward me. She slept completely still, unnervingly so. Every few minutes, I looked over and watched for the rise and fall of her chest, just so I’d know she was still breathing.

I eyed Vera’s mixtape sitting in the cupholder between our seats. After a moment, I popped the cassette into the car’s player and turned the volume nearly all the way down. It took a few seconds for the synth to fade in, but I soon heard a drum fill and Stevie Nicks coming through the speakers. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel to the beat.

I traced the faded “CAPE COD” written in marker on the front of the tape. It was our first vacation together, and Vera made it to commemorate the milestone. She wanted to wait until we arrived at the beach to play it, but I thought a preview wouldn’t hurt. She found me out later when I forgot to rewind the tape, and her Walkman picked up from the middle of “Little Lies.” We fought over it, and that sudden cloud of hostility didn’t leave us until we returned to campus.

I shook my head, conflicted. Why this souvenir? Why not any other time I listened to it? I suppose, though, the souvenir itself wouldn’t have mattered, as the history it dredged up would always make my insides twist. I flipped the cassette around before putting it down and picking up the next item: the figurine.

Vera dug around in her backpack for a minute.

“Just give me a second. I almost… Okay, got it!” She held up a tiny felt figurine. It was vaguely baby-shaped. Either a dress or swaddling concealed its legs, and its arms were crossed in front of its chest.

“My dad told me to give it to you. I think it’s supposed to help you sleep? You put it under your pillow, and it takes away all the nightmares and restlessness.”

I thanked her and pocketed the doll. She threw her arms around me and reminded me to call her father to thank him, too.

The doll was so frayed now. I wasn’t sure why, seeing as I hadn’t used it in years. At the time, I was having trouble staying asleep, and the thought that Vera’s parents hated me didn’t help. They had a bad first impression of me when I mixed up my lab times and accidentally blew them off for dinner. The gift was a pleasant surprise, and for a while, it had actually worked. But maybe I put too many nightmares in it. All I know is that a week after Vera and I broke up, I was waking up every hour, and I shoved the doll in a desk drawer until graduation.

I shifted uncomfortably. I had gotten many beginnings this time and wasn’t sure if that boded well for Lola’s things. I looked at Ma, who had just finished with the hairbrush. Her eyes softened, a silent encouragement to continue, and flickered to the scissors on the floor. I swallowed thickly and picked them up.

Ma trembled as she tore through her belongings. Papers, clothes, diagrams, and finally the scissors. She nearly dropped them as she stumbled into the bathroom. Her once flawless makeup ran, thick streaks of mascara dried on her cheeks and down her jaw. Her breath was ragged from crying so hard. She stared hard at her reflection to collect herself and smoothed her long hair with her fingers. Then, she held the scissors firm and hacked away, getting as close to a shave as she could without using clippers. She dropped the scissors into the sink, wiped the blood off her inner thighs with toilet paper, and flushed the mess down the toilet. Crouching down, she shoved her arm into the cabinet under the sink and felt around, retracting a clenched fist. She buried the stashed pregnancy test–positive–in the trash bin. Outside the bathroom, my father slammed the bedroom door open.

I came back with a gasp and whipped my head towards Ma. She glared at the floor and took hold of my wrist. If there were new memories, she didn’t show it. She took the scissors from my hands, moving on for me. I wanted to call out to her, to call out the blood and the silent funeral and solo ceremony she never told me about, but instead I studied Lola’s box. I had only touched the box once as a child, and for a long time afterwards, it had been off-limits. Even when I grew up, Ma said she wasn’t sure if I could handle it. I couldn’t handle it when Lola died, so how could I now?

Peering inside the box, I shook off my fear. The ceremony wasn’t about me; I owed it to my family to try. Lola’s old shotgun beamed up at me. I knew the story behind it—of course I did—but who wants to look death in the face? I caressed the trigger with my finger.

My grandfather screamed at my grandmother from inside the bahay kubo. Lola was in the backyard, attempting to tend to the garden while watching my mother, who was still a toddler. Lolo was just inside the house, beyond the open door. He sounded drunk. Lola yelled over her shoulder, and Lolo came stumbling to the door. Lola must have repeated what she said because Lolo turned bright red in the face, redder than he already was, and launched his slipper at her. He missed and hit his daughter instead. Lola stormed up the stairs of the porch with his slipper, plus her slipper for good measure. She disappeared into the house, and for a moment, there was silence. Then a gunshot. Something shattered. Lola scrambled through the door, but Lolo, gun in one hand, grabbed her arm and dragged her to the ground. My mother, watching, began to cry. In the struggle for the gun, Lola kicked Lolo’s elbow, breaking it. He dropped the gun, shrieking in pain, and as he reached for his wife again, she snatched up the shotgun and aimed.

Ma held my wrist again. She searched my eyes. “Naáalala mo ba?” she asked. It’s more of a habit than anything. It once brought me so much joy, the chance to take part in this with her, with Lola. Yet I’d forgotten every time what the loss feels like. “Anak—”

I snatched the stupid hairbrush off the ground, and the figurine, and the cassette. I wanted to remember the good, not just the bad, or the good with the bad. Not just the facts. I placed my palms on the wood floors, twisted around to feel our mourning clothes, grasped at the couch cushions, sprang up for the counters and the plants and the pig. Ma caught me as I fled outside, tripped, and nearly landed in the dirt. I cried in her arms.

“All we do—” pictures of Vera flashed across my mind, “—all we do is see the end.” The smoking gun, Vera’s crushed body, Ma’s baby. The fabric of my mother’s shirt wrinkled under my clenched fists. Hot tears slowly turned the soul into mud, and Ma held me. Five or ten minutes could have easily been an eternity.

When I finally looked up, I saw that she had cried with me. I wiped my sleeve across my face, and Ma delicately dabbed the corners of her eyes with her finger. We sat back in the grass and took turns petting Pig when he came to sit between us.

“She called me, you know,” I started, my voice hoarse, “like, a month ago. I was working at the hospital, in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, and she called. She was worried about you.”

“Hmm? Why?”

“You closed the shop for a day.”

“Ah, when I took Pig to the vet. He’s getting too fat. I don’t know what I’m feeding him.” Ma gently smacked Pig’s belly, and he pretended to run off in fear. We laughed wetly when he trotted back immediately.

“She asked me when I was coming back. If I was coming back.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I don’t know. I think I lied and said I was busy. I meant to call her back, really. I just,” I paused and plucked grass out of the ground, “I didn’t think that would be how I said goodbye.”

Ma rubbed Pig’s ears. “You know what the last thing I said to Lola was? ‘I’m going to get fish from the market.’ I wanted to get her cod one last time.”

“Does it ever stop?” I asked suddenly. It was such a stupid question, but I needed to know her answer. I needed to hear it from her. “Does it stop hurting this much? Shouldn’t we be used to it by now?”

Ma shook her head slowly, a sad smile finding its way to her face, “It hurts every time, ka. That’s the point.”

I reached across Pig and touched Ma’s hand.

I was five when Ma told me that my favorite wild deer had died. I cried and ran into the backyard searching for it, but she and Lola hid the carcass. Ma came to me in the yard and rubbed my back as I lay face down on the ground.

“It’s such a gift to be sad,” she said. “You got a chance to love.”