---

---

 

By the time Mama wakes up and Lolo steps outside, the calamansi is already in Gabe’s pocket. Gabe sits cross-legged in the dirt, palms empty.

Lolo squints at the tree. “Everything is like this when no one’s looking.”

“Like what?” Gabe asks.

“Thirsty,” Lolo says, reaching for the hose before looking at his grandson. “Just like you. Are you drinking enough? Your eyes, apo. They look so tired.”

The hose coughs before it clears, and then water dribbles out. Lolo narrows his gaze at the branches.

“Still no fruit,” he says.

“Too bad,” Gabe says. Against the seam of his jeans, the calamansi bulges small and warm.

“It’s always had to fight since I planted it.”

Last time Lolo told this story, it was Mama who planted the tree. Gabe doesn’t correct him. He files the contradiction away with the rest: misremembered names, swapped timelines, stories folding in on themselves. He’s always known, even before the diagnosis.

Lately, he’s caught himself hoping the forgetting goes both ways. Selfish—he knows that. But he’s thought more about how Lolo, in all his unraveling, might not notice how Gabe’s started to falter, too. The breath held too long. The ache that wakes him early.

There’s relief in being invisible. In still passing for whole.

Mama, a silhouette in slippers, waves from the kitchen window. When Lolo lifts his arm in return, the hose slips, jerking sideways and soaking Gabe’s chest.

“Sorry,” Lolo chuckles.

“It’s okay.”

Gabe wrings the edge of his shirt. The motion tugs at a nagging pain in his ribs. He doesn’t flinch. A man in his twenties shouldn’t.

The tree shivers in the breeze. The roots haven’t gone deep because they haven’t had the time. Or maybe they don’t trust the ground yet.

“You think the roots need more space?” Lolo asks.

Gabe’s eyes trail the brittle soil. “It’s too late to move the tree.”

Lolo hums but doesn’t argue. Gabe reaches over for the nozzle in his grandfather’s hands. He lets the weight transfer, hoping for no protest.

“I can do it,” Lolo says—but he’s holding air.

The water arcs lower. The dirt drinks.

Gabe thinks of how fast things disappear—moisture, cells, people. It reminds him of that night last month, when the screen turned his body into a prognosis.

When he logged into the patient portal and read “Stage IV Cancer,” he thought about smashing his bedside lamp or yelling into his cotton pillow. Instead, he stared at the words small cell cancer and metastasis until they blurred into unrecognizable shapes. The prognosis was not years. It was months.

He thought of Mama, pressing the calamansi sapling into the soil for Dad.

He thought of Lolo, misplacing stories mid-sentence.

And then—Mary.

Their first date was last month. They sat on the steps outside Little Quiapo with kaldereta warming their hands through paper bags. He watched her lips tell a story about the lunar module at the museum. She listened to his theory about the streetlights that share secrets. They promised to see each other again, no longer at the front desk of the library.

But the diagnosis on the screen stared back at him, no matter how often he tried to blink it away.

It was too cruel to offer Mary that kind of future.

Why did I wait?

Even with that thought, even with the diagnosis clinging to him like smoke, he still wanted. His family. Mary. The calamansi.

He still wanted something sweet.

---

After watering the tree, Lolo asks to go to the library. Mama says she has to work and that they could’ve gone over the weekend. Gabe hears this and says he can walk with him.

Mama’s eyes flick to his chest, then to the driveway—calculating, maybe, how far the walk is. She glances at the clock, then back at him.

Tuesdays, he remembers. Mary works Tuesdays.

Mama nods and steps aside.

The sidewalk splinters five different ways between the house and the library. Lolo crosses his hands behind his back like he’s leading a museum tour. Gabe matches his pace. 

They pass Pan de Manila, now painted a sterile blue instead of its old maroon, where the new owners never smile and the rolls come out too pale. The same dog with the torn ear barks from behind a rusted gate, but quiets when Lolo leans down. “Nakalibang ba?” he whispers. On the corner, a tricycle driver naps under a tarp strung between two poles, a battered karaoke machine at his feet. They pause by the hollow lot where the old community center once stood—the one where Gabe won a poster contest in third grade, and where Mama used to hand out water bottles on voting days. Now a vinyl banner promises “Future Mixed-Use Development” in blocky optimism, fluttering above cracked pavement and crabgrass. By the time they reach the library’s steps, Gabe’s shirt clings to his back, and Lolo’s hand trembles on the rail.

But it’s a good walk, after all. “Light movement,” “fresh air”—Gabe’s oncologist would be proud, as if either could fight what’s blooming under his skin.

The library smells of books soaked in decades of turning pages. A glass panel reads Welcome to the Cultural Memory Room, but the paint is chipping on the corners. Their usual table waits by the window. A few more trips, and maybe they’ll be remembered, too.

Then Gabe coughs. Loud, wet.

“Sorry.”

He walks toward a sign that says Restrooms in worn brown plastic. Once he’s certain he’s alone, the next cough drags itself out like it’s tearing loose from the inside. His ribs flare with pain, and for a moment, he’s not sure if he can stand back up. He grips the porcelain sink, cold and steady beneath his shaking palms. When he lifts his head to the mirror, he doesn’t recognize what’s looking back—so he stares harder, jaw clenched, and whispers, “Behave.”

When he steps out, he finds Lolo at the reference desk, speaking to a young librarian—Mary. Her aquamarine glasses slide down her nose each time she nods, and her brown cardigan, threadbare at the elbows, hangs open over a washed-out Mob Psycho 100 t-shirt—one of the few shows that Gabe loves. Her name tag carries a bright green I’m here to help! pin, tilted slightly. Her hair is braided over one shoulder, dark curls slipping free at her temples, catching the stale fluorescent light and turning it tender, like even the coldest glow had been waiting for her to arrive. Gabe’s always noticed the way she listens: head forward, eyes steady, with a beautiful ability to hear all the things people don’t know how to say.

Lolo waves a hand and carries a thick book back to the Cultural Memory Room. Gabe watches for a moment from the corner, exhales nervous energy, then heads over.

Mary starts tugging at the fraying sleeve of her sweater when she sees him. “Hey, you.”

“Hey, M.”

“Long time, no see.”

“Three whole weeks,” Gabe says. “Practically a lifetime.”

“I’ve missed giving you unsolicited book recommendations.”

“I like your recommendations,” he says, though what he means is, I miss you, and I don’t know where to put it. His hands find his pockets, but then he’s too aware of his own hands, his breath, the way the light catches the little scratches on the plastic counter.

“You look…good,” Mary says, then tugs at her sleeve again.

“Thanks. And you look, um, busy.”

“Yeah, well, librarians are known to be the epitome of capitalism, right?”

He loves the sound of her laugh. He wants to tell her that.

“You’ve always been really good at this,” he says instead.

They’re fortunate that the library understands how to carry silence without breaking it.

“So, you and your grandpa doing the usual?” she asks.

“Yeah. This time he wants to read more on the tree that he and my mom planted a year ago.”

Mary’s smile softens. “The one your mom planted for your dad?”

Gabe nods, feeling the way the air dips for a moment, like they both know they’re standing at the edge of something heavier.

“Yeah,” he says. “Lolo thinks if we study it more, maybe it’ll stop being so stubborn. Grow faster. Be better.”

Mary smiles. “Sounds like it’s got the right family.”

He lets the silence sit just long enough to be true, then tips his head, mock-stern. “Well, of course. We specialize in emotional trees. Bit more impressive than studying ‘library sciences,’ whatever that means.”

Mary catches the invitation—the tilt back into lighter air. She then gasps, clutching her chest. “Insulting my entire profession and pretending emotional trees are a valid major? Bold strategy for someone whose overdue fines I personally manage.”

“Some of us have real-world skills,” he says, grinning. “Overwatering. Emotional projection. Advanced guilt cultivation.”

Mary snorts, failing to hold onto her mock-disapproval. “I’ll have you know, library science involves research methodology, archival stewardship, and an ancient blood oath to recommend weirdly specific books to people who didn’t ask.”

“Blood oath, huh?” Gabe leans against the counter, the tension in his chest loosening. 

“Like a wizard.” She taps her lanyard. “Accredited, licensed, and everything. I’ll curse you with a reading list, Gabe.”

Gabe chuckles. “Already cursed. Pretty sure Lolo’s got about ten books lined up before I’m allowed to leave.”

“Well, I’m not losing you without a fight.”

The words land heavier than either intended. For a second, they can only look at each other, thoughts pressing at the edges.

Gabe clears his throat. “We’ll, um. We’ll be back there, then.”

Mary tugs again at the fraying edge of her sweater, her smile tipping, like a flag post catching wind. “If you need anything, I’ll be here.”

Gabe turns toward the Cultural Memory Room. He slides into the chair across from his grandfather. They look at the pictures together—trees they’ve never seen, fruit they’ll never touch, countries written into the skin of things. Outside, a kid on a scooter skims the curb with daring speed. Gabe envies him not for the danger, but for the motion.

Through the glass door, Gabe still sees Mary shelving books, her cardigan catching the light. Their eyes meet. He could stay like that—suspended in a sunbeam.

---

Gabe checks his watch and taps the table twice. The light outside is gold and dusted, like God forgot to finish painting. 

“Lolo, it’s almost five.”

They rise, slow and deliberate, halfway to the front desk, past a rack of book club picks and a half-dead pothos plant curling into itself above the New Releases. Just as they reach the counter, Gabe watches the scooter boy disappear down the sidewalk, likely returning home.

Meanwhile, Lolo’s hands clutch the book. He’s proud of what he’s done today.

Gabe’s fingers tighten around the seam of his jeans. He plays off the pause in his step, but even thinking about what to say makes him take a deeper breath than he intended. At the desk, he pulls out his phone.

“I’ll call Mama.”

“Why?”

“To pick us up.”

“But we walked here, Gabriel.”

Mary reshelves a biography behind the desk, but her face folds in concern.

“We’re fine, Mary,” Lolo says.

Gabe puts back his phone, pushing it against the calamansi in his pocket. “Lolo, it’ll be easier for both of us.”

“I don’t need anything to be easy,” he says, louder now. “You treat me like I’m already gone!”

A man at the far desk lowers his newspaper. A young woman adjusts her headphones, revealing a pierced ear.

“Why’d you even come,” he barks, “if you thought I couldn’t make it back?”

“Lolo—”

“Always making me feel small. Even now. In front of her!”

Mary steps forward, palms open. “Everything okay?”

“We’re fine!” he shouts. The book shakes in Lolo’s grip, and he tries holding it tighter. “I’m checking out my book, and then I’m walking home!”

The book slips. Maybe it’s the weight of it. Maybe it’s because Lolo clutches it like a shield. It strikes Mary across the forearm. She gasps—not loud, but loud enough for a library. Silence knows when to turn and listen.

Lolo stares at his hand, then at the book, because neither feel like they belong to him. He sets the book down on the counter with reverence, as if it still deserves that.

“I didn’t mean…God—it’s not my fault,” Lolo says.

Gabe opens his mouth, but nothing comes. The breath still sits too high in his chest. His hand is still in his pocket, now curled around the calamansi like it might anchor him, or crack under the pressure. His lungs scrape at the air, trying to pull in something useful. He looks at Lolo and then at Mary, and he wants to speak up. But his throat closes. His knees wobble. The light swims. Mary sees it first.

“Gabe?” she says, stepping around the desk. Her movements quicken. “Hey—hey, okay, what’s happening?”

The young woman who had slid her headphones aside tucks her phone away and steps forward. “Does he need water?” she asks, offering her bottle with a Nurses Week Is Every Week sticker on it.

A man in a Fil-Am veterans cap gets up from his chair by the window. “He needs to sit.”

Mary shakes her head and pulls out her phone. “Sorry, let me—Gabe, I’m calling your mom, okay?”

Gabe nods, but it comes off as more of a sway. The fruit presses deeper into his palm.

Mary presses the phone to her ear. “Hi—yes, it’s Mary. They’re okay. No, it’s Gabe. Can you come soon?”

Behind her, the older librarian who always smells like cough drops appears with a folding chair. She meets the veteran’s eyes, and together, they guide Gabe into the chair. “Sit, anak.”

The librarian takes the bottle from the nurse’s hand. She uncaps it, kneels besides Gabe, and presses it in front of his lips. “Drink.”

Gabe does. The cool water drags through his throat.

“Mary,” he manages as the librarian takes the bottle away.

Mary hangs up the phone and kneels beside him. “What do you need?”

“Your arm.”

“This?” she says, brushing it. “It’s nothing. I’m just happy I got to see you—both of you—today. That matters more than me getting hurt.”

Gabe looks at her and knows her gesture is soft and undeserved and impossible, like everything he feels about her.

“Thank you, M,” he whispers.

---

Gabe sits in the backseat. Lolo is beside him, eyes fixed on the horizon. Mama’s fingers tap once on the steering wheel, then still as she drives home.

“I noticed the calamansi’s getting its color back,” Mama says, talking to the windshield. “You know, when we first planted that tree, I went out and talked to it.”

She laughs, but Gabe can’t tell if it’s for the memory or the absurdity of the admission.

“I still do. In fact, I find myself doing that more now. Funny.”

Gabe doesn’t listen past that and looks out the window. The houses pass in soft blurs—stucco and concrete, chain link fences bowing inward like tired lungs. He turns toward Lolo, whose hands are folded in his lap as if he can’t trust them anymore.

Gabe looks at him and thinks of the tree. 

“Lolo,” he says.

Lolo blinks, then turns to him, as if pulled from a dream.

“Hmm?”

“You okay?”

“Of course,” he says. “I walked here.”

Gabe wonders what else disappears when no one’s looking.

---

Mama’s words float through the house like a basket of half-folded laundry: warm, tangled, almost clean. The door to her room is closed, but Gabe can still hear her from the kitchen. Behind him, a cabinet opens. A mug gets rinsed. The electric kettle turns on.

“I’ll make some ginger tea,” Lolo says. “It’s good for stomach bugs.”

Gabe shakes his head. “That’s not what’s wrong, Lolo.”

Unwilling to turn around, his hand rests on the frame of the screen door. A bird hops from the tree to the fence and back again.

“Maybe you need to eat more, then,” Lolo says. “What about dinner? Do you want to make it together?”

The kettle clicks off. Lolo pours the hot water over slivers of ginger. The scent unfurls. Bright. Rooted. Sharp.

Gabe turns and sees the mug on the counter, nearly teetering off the ledge because even care needs balance.

“Do we still have those skinny noodles?” Gabe asks. “For pancit bihon?”

Gabe slides the mug farther in so that it doesn’t fall.

---

After dinner, he steps out barefoot, letting the screen door creak. The tree is still there. One branch leans harder than the rest. He crouches beside it, pressing a thumb into the soil. Still damp from this morning. It shouldn’t feel like a miracle.

The door opens. He turns, expecting Lolo.

He sees Mama.

She carries two mugs filled to the brim with ginger tea. She walks over, sits beside him, and hands him one. She sets her cup between her feet.

“Remember how I said I talk to it?” she asks, eyes on the tree. “Sometimes, I think it talks back. And I wonder if it ever talks to you, like it does to me.”

The branches wave at them.

“It likes to remind me how it got there. The hole took longer than I thought, but your lolo made sure I did it right. Brought gloves. Made me drink water. He stayed close—just enough to catch me if I couldn’t keep going.”

Gabe remembers. He had looked outside only once to find Mama covering her mouth with one hand while she pressed her goodbye into the ground.

“Nowadays, I wait for leaves to get blown around enough so that they’ll become words. I’ll say something about dinner or our visit to your oncologist. I’ll hold a cigarette and wait for it to tell me, No. Always the waiting with this thing.”

She laughs and presses her hand to her chest.

“I know it sounds…I know. Of course. But this tree, it doesn’t interrupt. It just waits. That’s something, isn’t it?”

Her laughter, twisting into something smaller and more fragile, curdles into sobbing. She trembles beside him, and it startles him—the way her whole body tries not to come apart.

“I don’t know how to do this again.”

Futility. Forecasting. Frailty. Gabe doesn’t look at her. Can’t. The tree is easier—just stillness and leaves that don’t ask anything of him. He hears the sound she makes—too soft to be anything but crying—and his chest tightens. She’s breaking beside him, and he stays looking forward, like holding still might hold them both together. Everything hurts—his ribs, his throat, his heart.

“I—I don’t want you to disappear without ever letting me wait with you. And I—I know I’m supposed to be his daughter and your mom. But I see you flinch, even when you want me to shut my eyes, and I lose track of whoever I thought I was. And you keep saying that you don’t want me to. But I see you, my love. I see all of you. And I will never stop looking for you, even when I can’t find you. I will—”

Gabe doesn’t mean to look at her. He doesn’t mean to cry. He doesn’t mean to hurt. But it comes, loud and clumsy. The first thing he sees when he turns are Mama’s arms, open like they’ve always known this moment would come. He melts into them. No hesitation. No bravado. Just the weight of everything folding in.

In front of them, the tree embraces its branches.

“It’s not fair,” Gabe says, tears pooling in the corners of his mouth, “that you have to say goodbye to everyone.”

Mama lets the sound come—a sob that’s more prayer than pain.

---

The porch light flips on. Lolo sees the cups, the curve of his daughter’s shoulders, the way his grandson rests against her. He opens the screen door and steps forward, slow as roots finding earth. Then:

“You don’t like this tea, anak.”

Mama glances at the untouched mug. “No.”

She hands it to her father, and he takes a sip. Gabe lifts his cup to his mouth, too. The tea stings going down, then glows in their chests like a stove just lit.

“Who picked the spot?” Lolo asks, nodding toward the calamansi tree.

“You did, remember?” Gabe’s voice is steady, but something inside him tilts when his hand slips into his pocket again. His fingers graze it—and he remembers his theft. He’d taken something small and bright when no one was watching.

But now, with his family here, offering what they can, he draws it out.

A single calamansi. The only ripe one. Its skin is dimpled, softening where his thumb pressed too long. He rocks it in his palm, slow and unsure.

“I wasn’t going to take it,” Gabe says. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. How round it was. How it clung to the branch like it still had more time. And I liked it not just because it was ready, but because it was still here. I know that sounds—stupid, or something.”

He turns it again, thumb brushing the bruise he left behind.

“It felt selfish. To want something when I’m—”

He swallows. His thoughts are wind-blown petals in need of rescue.

“So you picked it,” Mama whispers. “And then?”

“I picked it because I wanted it,” Gabe says. “And I still want it.”

Lolo steps closer to the tree, slow and reverent, as if it’s an altar. His hands clasp behind his back. The porch light halos his shoulders.

“We could use it in the pancit,” Lolo says.

Gabe holds the calamansi tighter. “Next time, if we can.”

The tree waits, and then it blinks. Gabe nods at it.

 

---

JOSEPH CUSI TIAN-DELAMERCED is a Filipino writer based in Connecticut with a background in medicine, education, and storytelling. He works as a freelance creative writer and as an editor for The Bias Magazine. His award-winning stories have appeared in CRAFT (the one you’re reading now!), LIGHT, Creation Magazine, Beyond Words, and other literary magazines. You can find more scattered thoughts he weaves together on Instagram @wordsbyjosephctd.

 

Featured image by Julie Ricard, courtesy of Unsplash.