“Hi, Em.”
She clears her throat. “What’s up?”
I draw my knees to my chest. “Um . . . did you hear?” It’s possible that Dad texted her the news already, but it’s equally possible he didn’t. Our family doesn’t talk much, and usually anything important is passed along in fragments so that it feels like we’re playing that telephone game, except a sadder, real-life version.
There’s the sound of shifting at her end of the line. I imagine her tangled in the sheets, blurry-eyed and stretching. “Um. Yeah. I texted you back right away, remember? But if you want to hear it from me directly, fine: congrats! But that means we’re rivals now.”
I’m confused for a moment, then I realize she thinks I’m talking about me getting into U of M. “No,” I say, “I mean . . . yeah. Thanks. But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Oh?”
I run my hand through my hair. “Jun is dead.”
There’s a long silence at the other end, long enough that I pull the phone away from my cheek to check if I lost signal. I haven’t. I’m stunned by how hard this news has hit her. I didn’t know they were that close.
“Wait,” she finally says, “is that one of those rappers you’re into?”
“What—no,” I say. “Our cousin Jun. Tito Maning’s son?”
“The one who lives in the UAE?”
“No,” I say. “That’s Prince. He’s, like, twelve. Jun is—was—my age.”
There’s nothing from the other end.
“The one who ran away from home?” I try.
“Oh, yeah,” she says, though I’m unconvinced she actually remembers which cousin I’m speaking about. “Him. Sorry—I’m hungover.”
I don’t say anything.
She sighs. “Well, that sucks, man.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“You were pen pals or something, yeah?”
“Yeah. We were.”
“So what happened?” And this is the right question but not the right tone. It feels more like she’s asking out of curiosity than out of compassion. It’s the same tone people use to ask about a fight at school.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Dad wouldn’t tell me.”
“Go figure. What about Mom?”
“At work still.”
“Maybe he OD’d,” she suggests.
I shrug, even though she can’t see me.
“Murdered?”
I close my eyes. “I don’t know.”
“I bet it was suicide,” she blurts out. “You know how some Catholics are weird about that.”
I rub my eyes. This isn’t even real to her. “Look, Em, I don’t know. Maybe you’re right, but it’s not a joke, okay?”
“Chill. Didn’t say it was, baby bro,” she says. “Just trying to help.”
“Great. Thank you. I feel so helped.”
“Don’t be a dick. You called me.”
I don’t say anything. But I’m reminded why we had trouble getting along growing up.
There’s silence on the line for a few seconds. “Whatever. Anyway, you’re going to love college, dude. It’s, like, infinitely better than high school. Nobody forces you to go to class and you can party as much as you want. You buy any Wolverines gear yet? State’s way better at football, by the way. And basketball. And pretty much everything else.”
I’m quiet for a couple beats. “I’ve got to go, Em. Sorry I woke you up. I’ll let you go back to sleep.”
“O-k-a-y?” she says, drawing out the word like she has no idea why I’m upset. “Thanks for telling me about Jun, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
“Take care, baby brother . . . and I’m sorry this happened.”
The thing is, she’s not. Maybe she’s sorry I’m sad, but she’s not sorry he died. She didn’t know him like I did.
Did anyone?
“Bye, Em.” I end the call as she starts to shout something that sounds like, “Go Spartans!” and then I stare at my phone, wishing there was someone in my contact list I could call who would understand what I’m feeling. Someone like Jun.
I find Seth’s number, but decide against it.
I close my blinds against the early afternoon sun and climb into bed. Still fully clothed, I pull the sheets up to my chin and stare at the ceiling. I feel like there’s a heavy, oversized bolt lodged in my center that I have no idea how to remove. And each time my thoughts go to Jun, the bolt turns and burrows deeper.
I want to be held. I’m seventeen years old, but I want someone to hold me like how my mom held me when I was a little kid.
Why is this hitting me so hard? Yeah, Jun and I wrote each other. But then we didn’t. I don’t know a single thing about his life in the last few years. He never reached out to me, and I never bothered trying to find him. I only knew that he ran away because my dad casually dropped that fact over dinner, like, a month or so after it happened. All of us—including me—were just like, “Oh, that’s so sad,” and then went on with dinner, went on with our lives.
I reach over to the floor and pick up his last letter. I take a deep breath and reread it for the first time in years.
26 December 2015
Dear Kuya Jay,
I have not received a reply from you in three months. In that time, I have sent you six letters counting this one.
Maybe you have moved and forgot to give me the new address? Maybe they were lost in the mail and did not make it to you? Or maybe it is that you are too busy over in America. Now that you are in high school, you probably do not want to spend so much time writing letters to your faraway cousin anymore. Maybe you have a girlfriend. If so, I bet she is pretty and smart. Maybe you play on a sports team. If so, I am thinking it is basketball because you are a very good point guard. Much better than me.
As for me, cousin, malungkot ako. In English: “I am sad,” or, “I am down.” But translation is hard—perhaps “tired,” the larger way you use it, is the better word. Tired of my nanay caring only about what others think of our family. Tired of my tatay believing he always knows what is wrong and what is right all the time just because he is a police chief. Tired of the kids at school talking about music and TV shows and celebrities like any of it matters. What is the point, you know? People are sick and starving to death in our country, in our streets, and nobody cares. They worry instead about grades and popularity and money and trying to go to America. I don’t want to be another one of those people who just pretends like they don’t know about the suffering, like they don’t see it every single day, like they don’t walk past it on their way to school or work.
I wonder, do you ever feel like this?
Anyway, sorry to annoy you with yet another letter. I am thinking that maybe you do not want to do this anymore. If you do not reply, it is okay. I will leave you alone. But know that I would like it very much if you responded.
Sincerely,
Jun
* * *
Guilt, shame, and sadness swirl in my stomach. Yet I reread it a couple more times, forcing myself to face the sorrow, face the fact I never tried to find out where he had gone after he ran away from home, never tried to understand why.