Riddles and Goldfish

The tita's living room smelled like papaya and desperation.

"You're fourteen now, Mia," Tita Luz announced over the appetizer spread, her voice tight with something I couldn't quite place. "Time to start thinking about your future. Time to be SMART."

She pointed at the whiteboard behind her, where she'd drawn a triangle. A pyramid. Her eyes glittered like she'd just invented fire, not joined some sketchy wellness MLM that had been draining her bank account for six months.

"Goldfish memory," my cousin Leo whispered from beside me on the couch. He was sixteen, had that effortless cool I'd been chasing since middle school. "She forgets she pitched this last Christmas. And Easter. And that time at Jollibee when the manager asked her to leave."

I stifled a laugh, but Tita Luz heard. She fixed me with that sphinx-like stare — part Egyptian mystery, part judgment — that always made me feel like I was missing some crucial cultural context that everyone else had been born knowing.

"Mia," she said. "You understand. You're different. Not like your brother. He's too..." She waved a hand, searching for the word. "...Westernized."

Lightning cracked outside, close enough that the windows rattled. The storm had been brewing all afternoon, thick and suffocating as Tita Luz's presentation.

"The Lightning Round," Leo whispered, making it sound like a game show. "Here it comes."

But instead of selling us protein shakes or magic supplements, Tita Luz's face crumpled. She looked smaller suddenly, deflated.

"Your Lola," she said, her voice cracking. "She sold papaya on the street corner. Sold everything she had to send your dad to school. And now he's a DOCTOR. And you kids... you don't even visit."

The room went dead silent. The goldfish in their bowl near the TV swam in endless circles, oblivious.

"Tita," I started, but the words felt wrong. Too formal. Too Western.

"Nay," I tried instead, the Tagalog I'd only ever heard, never spoken, feeling heavy and unfamiliar on my tongue. "Nay, we visit. We will."

Her face softened. Something cracked open in the room, something that had been sealed tight for years.

"Good," she said, suddenly businesslike again. "Now. About this opportunity..."

Leo caught my eye across the room and grinned. Maybe we'd buy some protein powder. Maybe we wouldn't. But later, in his car, engine idling in the rain, he'd teach me the Tagalog words for "sucks to be you" and we'd laugh until our sides hurt.

Some futures you choose. Some choose you. Either way, you gotta keep swimming, even in circles.