I avoided her eyes but shot a glance at Bernadette, who’d been silently listening this whole time. “She knows she’s not supposed to talk about her.”
“Why? She was saying nice things. They sounded like lovely memories, in fact. I’m surprised you have such a strong aversion to them.”
I twisted my necklace around my finger. “She’s been gone a long time. I don’t really like thinking about it. It’s just easier to move on.”
Bernadette finally spoke up. “But you haven’t moved on. You’re just avoiding thinking about her in the hopes that it’ll all go away. Just like you’re doing with your memories of what happened a few months ago. When will you learn that hiding from your problems doesn’t magically make things better?”
Sana refilled my glass. “She’s right. After your parents passed, how did you cope? Did your aunt and grandmother help you grieve? Maybe take you to talk to your priest friend?”
I shook my head. “I wanted to talk about them, but it made my aunt sad and grandmother angry. So I knew that topic was off-limits. As for coping . . . I don’t know. We worked, I guess. That was when I started helping out at the restaurant.”
“So your family taught you to not talk about your problems and throw yourself into your work to avoid dealing with them? Does that sound healthy to you?”
I shrugged. “It’s what we do.”
“But it doesn’t have to be what you do. You can choose to seek help if you want it, you know. It’s not up to them.”
“She’s right, you know. Besides, I don’t think you give Tita Rosie and Lola Flor enough credit. Have you even broached the topic with them, or did you decide they were against it all on your own? I bet anything you built this all up in your head. And if they’re not cool with it?” Bernadette shrugged. “You’re grown. It’s none of their business anyway.”
And there it was. Despite fighting against my family’s expectations most of my life, I still craved their approval. Even Lola Flor, who I pretended to brush off but whose voice was always the loudest in my head, held more sway over my decisions than I did sometimes. Most of the big choices in my life had me working either for or against their wishes—rarely did I center myself in my decision-making. Even my more selfish decisions were more about rebellion than anything else. So why was I fighting the idea of therapy so hard? Why not accept the help so many people were trying to give me?
“Thanks, you two. You’ve given me a lot to think about. And I’m sorry for being suspicious of you, Sana.”
Sana shook her head. “It’s understandable, considering the circumstances. Don’t be so quick to dismiss someone because you like them or think they’re not capable of it. My time in prison taught me a lot of things, including this: Everyone is capable of murder.”
The mood was way too serious, so I tried to lighten it with a joke. “Even me?”
She looked me in the eye. “Considering all the love and loyalty you seem to have for your family and friends? Absolutely.”
Chapter Twenty
The usual crew gathered at Tita Rosie’s Kitchen for our morning meeting: me, my aunt and grandmother, my godmothers, Bernadette, and Joy. My aunt had also convinced Adeena and Elena to come join (“We never see you anymore! You’re getting so thin, please eat with us!”) and we all built up our silog platters, this time with the addition of fried tofu and bangus for my vegetarian/pescatarian friends. I had to admit, it was nice to see them chattering with everyone and stuffing their faces with my aunt’s excellent cooking again. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been feeling lately considering that I was the one who kept pushing them away.
After filling everyone in on what happened yesterday, Bernadette passed her phone around the table so everyone could see the picture of the notes she’d snapped the day before.
“Oh yeah, that’s definitely Mr. Weinman’s handwriting. I haven’t seen the first pageant letters, but I saw the ones he sent to Winnie and it’s a match. I’d recognize that old-fashioned handwriting anywhere,” Adeena said once the phone reached her.
“And the detective said they can’t do anything until they get the fingerprint results back?” Ninang June asked her daughter. Bernadette nodded and Ninang June scowled. “What a waste of time. I understand the need to do things properly, but with a town this small, how long could it possibly take to run those prints?”
As if in answer to her question, the door chimed and Detective Park walked in. He didn’t waste time with pleasantries.
“The results came in this morning. Oskar Weinman admitted that he sent those notes, both the pageant ones as well as the ones on your car the other day. Said he didn’t appreciate you poking into his personal business during such a sensitive time,” here he gestured to me and Bernadette, “and he was humiliated after he got kicked off the judging panel even though it was Rob Thompson who did him wrong. He’d hoped the threats would be enough to derail the pageant, but seems like Shady Palms’s parents weren’t going to be put off by something as small as threatening letters.” Detective Park did a good job of keeping the censure out of his voice, but I knew it was there all the same. He continued, “Anyway, it’s good that you figured it out when you did. We searched his home and found that he was planning to escalate. Stage schematics and scribbled notes lead us to believe he planned on sabotaging the final event, possibly causing harm to all the people onstage. Good work.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe Mr. Weinman would go that far just because he couldn’t be a judge in this ridiculous contest. What was he hoping to gain from all this?”
Ninang April said, “Even though it wasn’t publicly announced, most of the town knows Rob slept with his wife and got him kicked off the panel. On top of that, his business is struggling and that position would’ve come with free advertisement and other perks. He probably wanted to ruin something he knew Rob cared about.”
What a sad thought. “You said he confessed to the notes, but what about Rob’s murder?”
Detective Park frowned. “No, he says he had nothing to do with it. Claimed he was on a date with Winnie Pang when the murder happened.”
“Really? Did she, what’s the word . . . validate? No, corroborate? Whatever, did she back up his claims?” She’d given me the impression that she’d wanted nothing to do with him, but maybe she was seeing him on the low and was too embarrassed to say something. He was quite a bit older than her after all, and she’d made such a big deal about not relying on a man. Maybe she didn’t want to look like a hypocrite.
Detective Park nodded. “She said he was telling the truth, but asked me not to spread that information around. So again, this is confidential and I better not hear this making the rounds. Is that clear?”