Aunt Ely

Aunt Ely loved dusters: those oversized dresses with floral prints and lacey necklines.
She looked plain in dusters, I would tell her. She would smile and agree.
Carlos loved it when I wear them, she would say as she traced the wavy patterns
with her fingers.
I was eleven and I thought she looked rather frail and older in those dusters. Her face,
though, despite the wrinkles that webbed and crept on her forehead and the weight
under her eyes, remained radiant. Shed wear those dusters every day, everywhere: to
the farmers market on Mondays or to the village clinic for her blood pressure check
every Wednesday afternoon. I would tag along clutching a hem of her duster as we
walked to the bus stop.
You smell like pineapples, I would tell her, sniffing a whiff of her fabric conditioner.
Carlos favorite brand, she would respond, her eyes would twinkle, as we sat on the
bench, waiting for the bus to come.
On Thursdays, she would wear a special duster, the brightest in her set: bright yellow
with small panda bear patterns. I thought she looked more radiant than ever, unlike
the rest of her dusters. She would only wear that duster to church, though, every
Thursday night. I remembered only one other time she wore that duster on another
occasion: Carlos funeral.
I would tag along and she would hold my hand as we walked under the orange
streetlamps and through the throng of sidewalk vendors scattered outside the church.
Carlos loved this dress, she would murmur to the wind and I would nod, holding on
tight of her bumpy hands. I loved that dress too.
When her husband Carlos died, mom and dad allowed me to visit Aunt Ely frequently.
They told me to help her with the chores. I would run a quarter of a mile from our
house every day after school to get to Aunt Elys house. My chores included filling her
big ceramic tub with water from the nearby pump and helping her with the laundry. I
would sometimes spill water all over her linoleum floors but she would just smile and

1 | Page

pat my head. She would then roll her duster up, kneel down, and wipe the floor, her
face still radiant. I would sit there and watch her work and smile.
When my parents left, Aunt Ely took me in. It was a gusty afternoon; I was up on a
mango tree outside our yard, cutting the heads of some huge ants with a spoon when
she came. She walked through the grass with her duster hiding her feet, and floated to
the door. She wore a gray duster that day, I recalled. I called out to her and waved.
She gave me a half smile.
Are your parents here? she asked, her voice a little hoarse. I nodded and pointed at
the door with my lips.
Sitting up that tree, I heard the faint sounds of Aunt Ely and my parents talking. I
never paid much attention but I recalled my dads voice was heavy that day. My mom
was sobbing. I was down the tree when my mom went out, held my hand, and said,
You will live with your Aunt Ely from now on to finish elementary, ok? Her face was
dark and her voice brittle. I nodded and flicked the remains of a dead ant from the
spoon. That night, my mom sent me to Aunt Ely with my clothes in a large grocery
bag. I learned that night, as I sat eating adobo and rice, listening to Aunt Elys sister
next door, about the murders and about dads cousin. They both worked at a bakery.
Someone took his cousins money, slit his throat and threw his body in the middle of a
sugarcane field. They said that my dad had to leave because he couldnt take it.
Nilo was supposed to take Rommels shift, but they switched. It could have been Nilo,
you know. They got Rommel instead. It could have been Nilo. What would happen to
his family then if, you know? Anyways . . . Aunt Elys sister pressed on.
The adobo and rice looked a sickly gray all of a sudden. Her voice went on replay in
my head that whole night. The next day, my parents left the island. I remembered my
mom mumbling something as she kissed my hair, Well come back for you, okay? I
did not even notice them leaving. I did notice Aunt Elys hands on my shoulder as I
stared outside our empty house.
Your dad is a lucky man. Theyll come back, Aunt Ely said as we sat for breakfast.
I know they would, I replied. That began my life with Aunt Ely.
2 | Page

Aunt Ely lived in this up and down an extension of her sisters house. Small place. She
sold her husbands old house to pay for the funeral and her weekly supply of inhaler
shots for her asthma attacks. And so she moved with her sister. They had a carpenter,
an ancient man next door who smelled of beer in the mornings, do a sloppy job of
putting a piece of plywood wall to separate Aunt Elys part of the house from her
sisters. The plywood was so thin you could hear her sister and her friends rattling
mahjong pieces and gossiping about Aunt Elys choice of dress on afternoons. The
upstairs room had bamboo flooring that I scrubbed with coconut husks every morning.
Aunt Ely liked the feel of a smooth scrubbed floor. I would lie down on the cool floor
after a good scrub and watch Aunt Ely through the bamboo cracks listen to the news
downstairs or watch her read romance pocketbooks she rented for three pesos. I would
watch her silver hair ripple from the breeze coming from the fan.
One time, she had me and some of my cousins carry her wooden bed upstairs from
the old house. It had this woven nylon mattress. The bed was pretty battered. It
groaned and creaked when she moved in her sleep. Some nylon strings were severed
and some were supported by strings she tied herself. I slept on the floor by her bed on
rattan mats. I would muse and suggest that she could buy a better bed on her next
pension. Maybe something like the bed her sister had with the soft mattress. She
would smile and say,
Carlos bought this bed for our wedding. I bet it is soft as their mattress. That settled
it.
On rainy nights, after we placed empty fruit cocktail cans in corners to catch the
leaking rain, she would tell stories. Her stories were about her husband and their
adventures when they were young: stealing sugarcane from the back of trucks parked
by the plantation, jumping off the makeshift waterfall by the sugar mill, and kissing in
the rain. I would make faces and tell her that they were cheesy.
Cheesy is okay when youre in love, she would answer back.

3 | Page

She would talk until her breathing slowed to a faint whisper. I would stay awake a little
longer and retell those stories in my head, trying to remember them. They make me
warm inside.
On school day mornings, Id wake up to her cooking and sometimes to her singing
while she washed and wrung my clothes with her hands. Aunt Ely had strong hands.
She would let me feel the thickness of her calluses on one hand as she sat by my side,
reading those romance novels with the other.
Your hands are bumpy, I told her.
Carlos and I were farmers before, you know, she would say, holding up her hands.
She would walk me to school and come back in the afternoon to pick me up. Shed
wear her dusters: Brown, pink, green, purple, then brown again. I would help her rinse
them every night, by the water pump, under the acacia tree and then carry them to
the fence to hang dry. My hands would smell of pineapples all night. On afternoons,
after school, we would stop by a store to grab some ice cream. Vanilla. Just like her
smile. I would get me cookies and cream. She then would cook dinner as soon as we
get home, humming Unchained Melody while I watched TV. I would sing along with her
in the chorus, in the I neeeeddd your loovee. . . part, our voices cracking at the high
part. At night, before we sleep, she would hang my uniform, ironed and smelling like
her dusters, by the dresser and I would wait until she climbed on her creaking bed and
begin her stories. On Thursdays, as always, she would walk to church with me. She
would wear her yellow duster with panda bear patterns as usual. During those times, I
have never felt happier. I was at peace. The routine was sweet and alive. I felt content.

I turned twelve. Aunt Ely came with me when I enrolled sixth grade. It was a new
school, very different from the one close to our house. Aunt Ely saved some of the
money from her pension to get me through enrollment. I was excited but scared of the
newness of the place. Aunt Ely held my hand on that first day of class, both of us
smelling like pineapples. See, she said, her eyes shining like broken glass, they
even have a drinking fountain. I nodded in agreement.

4 | Page

That year, Aunt Elys asthma attacks became frequent. One time, I waited for her at
school after class and she never came. I came home and found that she had gone to
the clinic. I ran there right away.
You should not exert yourself, the doctor told her.
I looked at Aunt Ely. She seemed smaller than ever in her brown duster, her pink flipflops, and her vanilla smile, sitting on that plastic chair as the doctor took her blood
pressure.
I could walk to the bus stop by myself, you know, I told her while we were walking
home, Ill go with Emilio and the rest of the kids.
Ok, she quietly said, her eyes flecked with a kind of sadness that struck my chest.
Our daily walks ended that day except the ones she insisted that we have on Thursday
nights to church.

The new school was a strange place for me. It was a chaos of acne, sweaty armpits,
and stinky feet. All the boys seemed to care more about who has the best-looking
shoes, or the most expensive hankies, or the slickest hair. I felt lost. I made Aunt Ely
buy me a big tub of gel to make my hair look wet all the time. She would comb my hair
and tell me that I looked cute. I told her that cute is for puppies.
In school, I quickly learned that you get popular if you can say the nastiest insult or
swear the loudest. It felt like it was expected for boys in our class to do the same. I
was pressed to do the same. It was a rite of passage. One time, I was sitting in class,
waiting for the teacher to come, when the boy behind me nudged my back and
pointed at someone in front. I looked at his direction and saw a girl on the most
yellowed uniform, probably a hand-me-down, walking into the classroom. Her hair was
in tangles and split ends held by a ponytail. She looked rather small and frail, her bony
hands tugging at her sleeves. The boy shouted the loudest insult to her and laughed. I
cringed. The room roared with laughter. The girls eyes broke; her face looked
smashed by invisible hands. The boy behind me stared at me, his eyes pressing me to

5 | Page

do the same. I swallowed, sniffed my sleeves, and forced a laugh. I choked. Haha.
Haha. I felt like throwing up.
The girl ran out the door. I never saw her again but I still remembered her broken face,
her ponytail, and her yellowed uniform. I thought of Aunt Elys favorite duster. That
day, after the laughter died and the class settled down, I buried my face on the hem of
my shirt and sniffed at the scent of pineapples that remained. I still felt like throwing
up.

On afternoons, after school, I played video games. The daily after-school walks with
Aunt Ely became walks to the game shop with the other boys in my class. I learned the
right flicks of the controllers, the timing of the punches and kicks, the elements of
dodging and so forth. I frequented the game shop with my classmates, my brothers in
this art: King of Fighters, Bloody Roar, Samurai Showdown, bloody or not, I played
them all. I would often sacrifice my five peso lunch for another fifteen minutes of
Street Fighter. I would borrow money from my classmates just to play for ten more
minutes. If I ran out of money, I would just watch and cheer, or insult other players for
being noobs. I would stay at the game shop until it closed then raced home with the
other boys, our stomachs loud and burning from hunger. The owner would sometimes
chase us away or call us addicts. We did not mind at all. It sounded more of an
honorary title than an insult. I would come home with Aunt Ely sitting by the door, the
radio singing in the background. Hows school? she would ask. Id nod and stand
there. She would never say anything about me coming home late. She would just
smile her usual smile and usher me inside to eat.

A lot of things changed between me and Aunt Ely that year. I was not sure when these
changes started happening but they did. It started one night when I stopped listening
to her stories. Maybe that was because I was tired from a whole day of video games or
perhaps her stories became nothing but bland and old. Maybe, I was just pretty stupid.
And so, I told her that I was tired and that she should stop talking. Silence. She
stopped talking. I let that silence lull me to sleep. She stopped her stories for good
6 | Page

after a week of my nightly rejection. On Thursdays, she would insist that we still walk
to church so that she could get some exercise.
We should take a cab. Its not safe to walk, I would tell her.
The Lord would keep us safe, she would say, for we are going to his house.
I would nod, as always, but every time she tried holding my hands, I would shake them
off, walk a little faster, and leave her behind. Still, Aunt Ely wore her vanilla smile and
said nothing. She would still hang a fresh uniform in the dresser every night and cook
me breakfast in the mornings. I was oblivious to all of this of course. I did not fully
realize these changes until that one night.
It was another Thursday night. I was sitting outside Aunt Ely's church. The night air
was humid and smelled stale from the nearby fish ball truck. A number of vendors
were fanning themselves with folded newspapers while chatting over the latest
episode of the nightly soap opera. A steady popping sound from the popcorn kiosk
drowned their voices. I earlier refused Aunt Elys invitation to come inside the church. I
told her it was too hot and that I would wait for her until church is over. She smiled her
vanilla smile and said okay. She gave me some money for snacks and told me that she
wouldnt be long. I watched her amble towards the church in her yellow duster. The
wind was sticky to my face as I sat there looking at the assortment of sidewalk
vendors plaguing the streets. The place felt congested and suffocating. I sighed and
thought about how the other kids were playing the 20th level of Bloody Roar in the
game shop. Id rather be there. Someone nudged me from behind.
"What are you doing here?" The boy who sat behind me from my class stood under the
orange streetlamps, his face darkened by the shadow of his cap, a slit of a smile stuck
on his face. He had one hand in his pocket and the other holding a small Tamagotchi
he spun on his index finger. Three other boys stood behind him I recognized from the
other class. I thought they looked different not wearing our school uniforms. They
looked intimidating nonetheless.
"Nothing," I replied, looking down at the pavement. A loud ringing sound emanated
from the bell tower of the church, signaling the end of the Thursday worship. Aunt Ely

7 | Page

would be out any minute now. People started pouring out from the chapel and the
vendors suddenly woke up and began their chants to draw customers.
"I have to go," I told them and started to leave.
Not yet, the boy said, his smile getting bigger. Sinister. He pointed at something and
yelled, "Look.
I turned and followed his direction.
That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life," he shouted to the other boys behind
him.
There, under the orange lamps that line the street, was Aunt Ely, in her yellow duster
with panda patterns, wearing her vanilla smile, apparently looking for me amidst the
stampede. My eyes remained fixed on her as the other boys smirked in blind
agreement. Aunt Ely spotted me and started waving, her smile wider. I had this urge
to wave back at her like I used to but I stopped myself.
"Do you know her?" One of the boys spoke, his voice sticky as the wind.
"No," I murmured.
I wondered about the reason why I said what I said that night, or felt what I felt.
The boys smirked again. One of them slapped me on the back. I cringed at his touch. I
looked at Aunt Ely, still waving at me, her lips forming my name, her yellow duster
glowing red under the street lights. She looked so small. So frail. Even in her favorite
dress. "Carlos loved this dress," I remembered she told me. And I loved that dress too.
I loved that dress. Her eyes were broken glass, orange and black under the
streetlights.
I looked at the boys from class and I saw nothing but empty eyes and those slits of a
smile gleaming under the orange light. I glanced at Aunt Ely once again, her face
riddled with worry, her eyes fixed on me. Her smile was gone now as she struggled to
reach me, her hands weakly waving above the hundreds of faces that lined the street.
I should have reached back. I should have waved back.
I did not.
8 | Page

I ran. I ran home. I ran away from her. I ran away.

Aunt Ely went home that night, her face dim. She did not speak at all. She looked so
frail as ever. And as she climbed into her bed that groaned and squeaked that night, I
held my breath, the smell of pineapples locked in the room, the silence choking the air
around me. I whispered, "Can you tell me one more time how you and Carlos met?"
Silence. I heard her sigh after what felt like an hour of sickening silence. That night,
Aunt Ely told me for the thousandth time, their adventures: stealing sugarcane from
the back of trucks parked by the plantation, jumping off the makeshift waterfall by the
sugar mill, and kissing in the rain. Her stories sounded like they were just told for the
very first time. Carlos loved these talks, you know.
I nodded.
I love them too.

9 | Page