Moving House

Moving to a new house during the new moon will bring difficulties, but doing so during the full moon will bring happiness and prosperity to the family. 

Diego carefully points the driver of the moving van to the bungalow on the right. Even with only the moon as his guide, he can still see the yellow paint curdling on the wood, the overgrown plants on the side. Next to the house, a single lamp post stands quietly impotent. 

When the driver kills the engine, the 16-year-old boy allows himself a moment to catch his breath. For the first time since this whole thing started, he feels like he can finally relax, like his heart isn't about to leap out of his chest.

He hears the two men who had been riding in the back jump down and start unloading some of their things. They must be eager to finish the job and get back home to their respective families. 

Through the side mirror, he sees his own pull up in a hot pink Nissan Vanette. Slinging his duffel bag over his shoulders, Diego gets out of the truck. The color may not have been their first choice, but it was the only vehicle they could afford on such short notice.

His grandfather, a retired tailor, is behind the wheel. His mother is sitting next to him in the passenger seat, while his two younger siblings are presumably passed out in the back. He isn’t surprised. They have traveled far to get here.

Standing on the sidewalk, he gives them a wave.

Most people would probably prefer to move house while the sun is still out, but Diego thinks this is better. This way, they don’t have to parade their belongings in front of gawking neighbors. Nobody needs to see their old couch with all its food stains and age spots or their stand fans barely held together by plastic twine. Nobody needs to know the life they lived before they get a chance to start a new one.

He watches his grandfather step out of the van, his joints popping as he stretches his limbs, and reminds himself to ask Lolo to teach him how to drive tomorrow, before joining his mother in rousing his younger brother and sister awake.

When occupying a new house, bring first your rice, salt, and water, and you will never want for basic necessities. 

They’ve never had much in the way of money, but Diego knows they’re still luckier than others. Back in their old hometown, his mother used to work as a public school teacher, while doing a bit of seamstress work on the side. For the most part, the combined income had kept a decent roof above their heads and put warm food in their bellies. 

She would have to find new employment now, but Diego thinks he saw a school not far from here.

Lolo also has some savings from when he sold his tailoring business three years ago. Sometimes, when money came up short, Diego's mother would find the groceries suddenly paid for, the rent already taken care of. His grandfather never brings it up though, never makes them feel like they owe him, never uses it as a bargaining chip or collateral.

Diego loves his family fiercely. He’ll do anything to protect them, he thinks. 

It sounds serious, especially coming from a teenager, but Diego has never been young.

When he was four years old, he allegedly told off a visiting relative, a distant aunt, for making rice incorrectly. Apparently, he had been observing his mother cook rice for a while and immediately noticed when his aunt did not do it the same way. 

He doesn’t remember this, of course, but everyone in the family loves to bring the story up during reunions. They’ve been telling it for as long as Diego can remember, so it must have a grain of truth in it.

Another favorite story is of the time his cousins invited him to swim with them in the sea. According to Diego's mother, she felt overjoyed when Diego had accepted, thinking that her son was finally allowing himself to be a child, only to find out that he hadn't even dipped his toes in the water. When asked why he had agreed to join them in the first place, Diego answered that he wanted to make sure none of his cousins get hurt.

Diego at least remembers this. He was nine at that time.

Before one occupies a newly built house, he or she should slaughter an animal and spill its blood at the base of every post so that the house would not be haunted by the evil spirits.

Diego's father used to be an overseas worker based in the Middle East, but he barely knows him as he and Diego’s mother had been estranged for years. Last year, however, he met with a terrible accident while on the job, which required the amputation of his right leg. After investigations revealed negligence on the part of the company, his father was given over a million pesos in reparations and sent home. 

Unsurprisingly, nobody wanted the responsibility of taking care of Diego's father, not his mistress, not his brothers and sisters, not his own parents, and so Diego’s mother, in an attempt to provide Diego with a father, agreed to house him under her roof, to put out a plate for him at the dinner table, without asking for anything in return. 

His presence unsettled Diego, but he endured it, not wanting to make trouble for his mother. Fortunately, it was easy for Diego to avoid him. His father spent a lot of time outside drinking with his old buddies, so by the time he came home, everyone was asleep. When he eventually woke up, it would be noon and Diego and his siblings would already be in school.

That all changed one evening when his mother learned that his father had been stealing the money she had been meticulously setting aside for Diego’s college education.

In a small community like theirs where the houses are packed together like sardines in a can, news travels fast. By morning, everyone and their cousin didn't just know that Diego's father had stolen money from his poor wife, but exactly how the purple bruise on her face came to be.

Because of this, Diego thinks that they would probably understand why he did what he did.

The movers are long gone now. His mother and younger siblings are asleep on a mattress on the floor of the first bedroom. His grandfather who suffers from insomnia is in another room unpacking some of the smaller boxes. He claims that it's too late to sleep, that the sun will rise soon anyway.

Diego will make him coffee when it does. For now, there is something he must do. 

He picks up his duffel bag and goes to the back of the house.

They're a long way from home, but it was a necessary move, Diego thinks. It was only a matter of time before his father raised a hand at his mother again, and Diego couldn't allow that to happen.

Out in the yard, in the cold misty air, he unzips the bag.

Almost immediately, a concentrated, sort of metallic scent wafts out, but Diego expected that. After all, he hadn't opened his bag in hours and with very little air circulation...

Taking a deep breath, he reaches into the bag and pulls out a wad of cash, and then another, and then another, until everything is accounted for. He shivers. In his hands is approximately a million pesos. The price of a leg, a check written in advance. As Diego returns the money in the bag, the sky above him begins to lighten and the roosters begin to crow.