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Back Fairest Save as PDF
Chapters (27)
  1. Dedication
  2. Epigraphs
  3. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  4. Prologue
  5. PART ONE
  6. 1.
  7. 2.
  8. 3.
  9. 4.
  10. 5.
  11. 6.
  12. PART TWO
  13. 7.
  14. 8.
  15. 9.
  16. 10.
  17. 11.
  18. 12.
  19. PART THREE
  20. 13.
  21. 14.
  22. 15.
  23. 16.
  24. 17.
  25. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  26. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  27. What’s next onyour reading list?

Mama held my shoulders and shook me. “You can’t speak to me like that!” she yelled, and as my teeth clattered, I knew my whiteness could save me from many things, but not this. When we got home, my mother pulled my arm so hard I felt like a puppet, except I owned bones that flinched at her tug. She did not turn on the light when she dragged me up the stairs. In the dark, Mama shoved me facedown on her bed and I wanted to disappear. I knew how. I couldn’t just be white; I needed to be transparent, a figment without feeling or shape. I am a ghost. I am a ghost, I chanted inside, to every whack of her broom, as she made my white flesh red. But soon my incantation worked and I hung in the air, that ghost of myself. I became that ghost whenever Mama hit me if I misbehaved, if I talked back, if I smiled too wide or too little, if I said too much or not enough. I accepted the pain because parents beat their kids where I was from, but I couldn’t accept the injustice of Mama hurting me whenever I wasn’t perfect, while she allowed herself to make every mistake. I didn’t grow to hate Mama because she beat me; I hated her because she was unfair.

4.

I was on one of my visits to Bulacan, which had grown more rare since I became an actor, when my Tita Jackie came from college in Manila one Saturday morning as I read on the floor of our common room.

“I have some bad news from your mama,” she said. “Your show has been canceled.”

“But why? The ratings are so good.”

Tita Jackie explained that the network decided to replace us with a news program. She conjectured that since the government owned the TV station, maybe the administration wanted a show about the real lives of Filipino people.

“Will you be okay?” she asked.

“I think so.”

I lay on our floor and looked up at the ceiling to think. Bisoy was canceled. I could lead a normal life again. I could go to school every day and not have to endure late-night tapings. I could go back to Talacsan every weekend. Maybe Mama wouldn’t beat me as much. But then I remembered how exhilarating it was to see myself on TV and felt a twinge I didn’t expect.