Free When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe

sing in the choir, she was the center of attention. The other singers would gather around her. I would watch her the entire time. It was like this for every mass.
    We went straight home after mass. I was so hungry and excited at the prospect of my aunt’s cooking. Every other day my father and I were left to fend for ourselves, but on Tuesdays, while she was still filled with the grace of prayer, my aunt invited us downstairs to eat. I remember my stomach rumbled so loudly on the walk home that my aunt turned and glared at me.
    “Carlito, go find yourself some granadas fruit. Your stomach talked throughout the entire mass. It was so embarrassing. Hurry home and help your father prepare for dinner. Remember, you are his only child, the only one to care for him as he gets old. It is your duty, and as you know, he is not strong.” This was the future I had to look forward to. My aunt and uncle had three children who would care for them someday. There was only me for my father.
    “Yes, Auntie,” I said, and hurried home. I did not get much farther ahead than the rest of them. My right leg was already crippled from polio. The best I could accomplish was a steady hobble. Nor did I find any pomegranate fruits. There was really nothing to do in terms of getting Papa ready for dinner. Afresh shirt and trousers: I had readied these items the night before. The sound of my leg dragging was what bothered her. Her left eye blinked and twitched whenever another parishioner came over to talk. My aunt could not concentrate on the conversation; the scraping of my shoe against the dirt set her face twitching in a climactic symphony of blinks and jerks until she grew frustrated and ordered me to hurry home.
    As soon as I reached the door to the house, I stomped my feet loudly and lit a candle to scare away the roaches. As usual, they were holding a congregation in the middle of the kitchen floor and scurried away with their meager pieces of food. I went to the cabinets where I knew the silverware was, and once again I alerted them by knocking on the drawer before I opened it. The roaches scrambled out as soon as I pulled open the handle. One was brave enough to jump on my arm. I took out the silverware and began to lay the pieces on the table. That was my chore every Tuesday evening.
    At my aunt’s dinners, I was not allowed to sit in the good seats. These were wooden chairs with velvet cushions. She had acquired four of them from mah-jongg winnings. She had her eye on the remaining two at the town shop to complete her set. My aunt, in all her poverty, was obsessed with gambling. She always lived in the future. “When I win the big jackpot you will see,” her sentences always began. She wanted so badly to replicate the lives of the rich parishioners at church. She had hungry eyes for every detail of clothing, every handkerchief, or every earring they wore. She had numerous items at the various shops in town that were soon to be paid off. She paid them in installments. A gaudy ring, a tapestried lounge chair, a bureau made of cherrywood, all of the items incongruous to her meager clothing, her meager house. It never struck her that the large ring could never help her achieve a semblance of wealth, when her sandals were worn and obviously resoled. These things saddened me beyond explanation.
    For dinner, I borrowed two stools from my aunt for Father and me. If I stood anywhere near her precious chairs, even if I did not intend to sit in them, she would shove me aside. That was how it was that night. I was peering over the blur of arms and dishes being placed on the table, when my aunt elbowed me in the neck.
    “Carlito, here, here. Sit at the end, so that you can attend to your father. Oh, did I hurt you? You are always in the way.” She laughed.
    She made pancit, the clear noodles, with slices of chicken and onions, and lumpia, the wrapped rolls of ground beef and potatoes, with sprinkles of carrots and raisins to offset the spices. This