Gravity

3. Same Old Things

“After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”

― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Amihan

Finland is famous for many things like the beautiful Northern Lights or the ice hotel, but most importantly, they were known to have the best school system ever. But the fact is, high school or secondary school is still the same for everyone. 

I step into the classroom and felt everyone's eyes on me. I'm used to being alone, so I don't talk that much, nor do I mind having no one to talk to. I try to focus as much as I can on the lessons, but after waking up early to clean the house and prepare for their breakfast. I was still tired. 

I find myself napping at some point and waking up when everyone seems to be leaving. I'm glad I fell asleep on a Math subject since I'm decent at it as long as I know the formula, I would be able to follow through. 

Even though I took off a week from school, I was still working in Aunt Mira's restaurant then found a job at a local bakery after I dropped the kids off to daycare and school. Aunt Mira's restaurant opens in the evening, so I'm thankful that it does give me time for other jobs to get to.

Last night seemed like a busy night as there were oddly a lot of reservations on a Sunday night. I didn't expect it to be like that, I thought Sundays were supposed to be mellow and that there were hardly any people. Aunt Mira seems to know everyone by name too.

It seems that in their school system, we needed a mandatory outdoor activity, and we don't spend so much time in school and come home quite early compared to my old school. Just as I was about to go back while walking to my old car, I hear someone call my name.

"Amihan!" I turn to look and see Sven in yet again in only a blue hoodie and jeans that hug his muscular legs so well. I smile at him, and he smiles back as he stops in front of me, "heading home already?"

I nod, "I need to pick up Sana and Yume, you?"

"Oh, me too um...my Mom invited you to dinner later, and there isn't going back. You won't have to make the shift later, and don't worry, it is still with pay. She will really love it if you bring the two too"

Stunned, I look at him than to my car. "Knowing her, I don't really have an option, huh?" 

He snickers "You know how my mom is like"

I smile, "Yeah, okay, sure. I'll just take the kids from school. What time?" 

"about 6, I guess."

I have time to do a shift in the bakery. I nod, "Would be there before then."

***

"Mama, why did you choose this job?" Sana asks me while sitting on the front passenger seat. 

I pull over by the parking lot and look at her. Her hair tied in a ponytail with some of her baby hair escaping the tie. She looks at me with her usual wide adorable eyes, and her ears were peeking out of the sides, which earned her the name Dumbo back in Japan.

"Because it's the only job available for me," I glance back to see Yume silently enjoying the view from his car seat. Yume has always been the daydreaming imaginative quiet kid. He rarely cries, which makes me really worry if he does. There must be something really wrong if he did cry. 

"But you don't know how to bake" Sana giggles, her bucktooth is really cute in my opinion. 

"Well, I could learn," I smile, it was so easy to laugh with them. I feel even less tired now. "Mama is smart, you know."

"I know, but still!" Sana giggles.

"Yeah, you just like thinking that Mama is stupid," I tease while taking my seatbelt off and climbing off the car. 

I hear the passenger doors close right after mine. "I did not say that!"

"You insinuated it" I playfully stuck my tongue out while I wait for Yume to get out of the car with Sana opening the door for him. 

"Mama haw long twill we go two Aunty Mira?" Yume asks, he walks straight for me and raises his hand for me to hold. "Is Wuncle Tapio and Yofef be there?"

"it won't be long, and of course they'd be there. It's their house baby" We walk to the local bakery. It was owned by someone Aunt Mira knows who is an old woman with two daughters who work there. 

Leena, one of the owner's daughters, is the eldest with a beautiful rose pink hair that she always braids and put on the side. It's long and goes past her shoulders and even past her chest, stands by the cashier, and gave me a small smile. She has been the first person I met in the bakery. 

I was looking around for a job when I stumbled on this quaint and rustic and warm bakery. Then I saw her, the prettiest teenage girl I have ever seen with olive tone skin and pink lips. I couldn't imagine her being single, but she was. The man she's going to marry must be lucky. 

Ismer, the youngest, is a blonde with blue eyes. She doesn't talk much, but she glares a lot at me with her almond-shaped eyes. I know she doesn't like me. I get that, so I try to stay out of her way and do what she says accurately when she asks for something. 

She's by the shelves, stocking bread on them. Yume gazes curiosly but doesn't move closer to her as she was yet again glaring at me. Sana, on the other hand, smiles at Leena and even Ismer. 

"Hallo!" Sana says while skipping to the counter. She gave Leena her biggest smile, "Leena, how are you?"

Leena chuckles and says, "I'm very well, thank you. How about you? Did you have a good day?" she brushes some snow off Sana's beanie with the embroidered snowflakes. I've always known Leena to be gentle and motherlike even though her hands were a bit rough from baking since she was young, and her grip was incredibly firm. 

"Yes! The school was fine, I missed your loaves of bread though. It's nothing like the ones at school." 

"You charmer" before I know it, Leena is pulling a brown paper bag and putting blueberry muffins and scones in it. "Here, eat that with your baby brother."

"Yay! Thank you," she says in Finnish. 

I sigh, I couldn't stop Sana to receive the food because that's how polite people should do. You shouldn't easily accept gifts, but it's really different here. 

"Mama," I feel Yume tugging my hand to get my attention "Baito?" Part-time job? 

"Yes, my sweet boy, like every day. Now, I need you to stay here with your sister, okay, until I'm done."

He nods silently as I place him on the empty seat and push it close to the table so he can reach it. Sana comes skipping on the opposite chair after chatting something with Ismer that I couldn't hear. It seems even Ismer can't resist my girl. 

"You two stay here while I do some work" I go around the corner to get behind the counter. I tie my hair in a ponytail and wear the brown with white stripes apron while I took Leena's place by the cashier. 

"You can go home early today, I heard Lun—Mira invited you for dinner, and you shouldn't be late for that." 

I froze. I never thought about how vital Aunt Mira was in the community. It never occurred to me that she was, but little by little, even in school, I keep hearing her family's name, and this person called "Alpha" "Oh, sure, but if you need me, I can stay."

"It's fine," Leena chuckles while cupping one of my cheeks. "You go have some fun. Mira says she misses your presence and the kids, especially Yosef."

I smile, liking the warmth of her hand. It brought me so many memories that I didn't want to begin to remember, so I step back and nod. "Thank you, I'll pay you back."

"You don't have to, and before you go, please do tell me," She says before disappearing on the back to make more bread. 

I sigh, I look around the empty bakery and watch my two kids trying to read a book while eating their blueberry scones and muffin. It's odd how easily I'm adapting to this life as I feel like this is the new normal for me. 

This was the right choice I chanted in my mind as the day goes on. Even when I was talking to customers, I repeat this in my mind. This is the right choice because he would never find us here. 

***

After my shift, we immediately went home to rest for thirty minutes and get ready for dinner at the Olsens. Yume was excited as he grew attached to Sven and is absolutely adored by Uncle Yosef and Aunt Mira. He even had a little argument with Sana as he couldn't keep still and hit her chin with his head when she was brushing his hair.

"Stop moving!" She whines while he pushes him down to the mattress. 

"But onechan hurry!" he whines back, looking at their reflection on the mirror by the dresser.

Our bedroom, which is initially mine, is now filled with a dresser, cabinets, a large king-sized bed, and a mattress. It was given by Aunt Mira, and I wanted to refuse since she gave us so much already, but Sven was already assembling the whole thing when I was trying to lug one of the boxes back to the back of his truck.

I swear that man is as stubborn as anything I've ever met. He is probably more stubborn than me if I think about it. He just continued nailing and bolting the pieces together, and he even singles handily carried the mattress on the bed frame. I blame it all on the fish they're catching here in Finland. 

Super steroid fishes or something. 

The three of us share the room since I think they're too young to have their own room and don't want them to be separated from me that long. Sven thought it was weird, but I told him that we're Asians, parenting is just incredibly clingy there and really different. 

I pulled out a black long-sleeved dress. It was the only appropriate dress that I could wear in this cold weather, and it was also the same dress I wore at their funeral. I stare at myself on the mirror, I look paler than I was before I used to have a tan because of the sun

Living in the cold seems to make me lighter than usual. It's been a while since I've been back home in Palawan. I suddenly miss the warmth of it, it's as if I can feel it on my skin when I concentrate harder. When I close my eyes, I can see the threes awning by the road as the sun flitted through the leaves. 

How long has it been since I was home? Probably when they were all still alive. 

Sighing, I decided to busy myself with helping the kids prepare. It took us ten minutes to get to our old car and another twenty minutes to get to Olsen's home. Sana decided to turn on the music halfway there 

"When I was a young boy

My father took me into the city

To see a marching band."

Sana gasps, "Mama! It's our song!"

I chuckle, "He said, son when you grow up."

"Would you be the savior of the broken" she sings

"Bwait!" Yume shouts from behind, so I pause my phone for now to hear him. "What kind of song is this?" 

Looking at him through the rearview mirror, I see him look pensive on his car seat as if he never heard music before. "Did I not teach you my emo ways?"

He scrunches his brows "Emo?"

I laugh, "Trust me, baby, you didn't miss much."

"The songs are amazing, though!" Sana shouts

I reach her tummy and tickle her. "It is! It is! It is!" I tickle her, and she loudly squeals and wiggles around in her seat. I keep glancing from the road and to her glee filled face, and at that moment, I felt happy. 

We have a house, a car, and each other. I have my family, which I never had before, and it felt incredibly lovely. This what I've always thought home felt like. 

I see Aunt Mira's house, which was colossal compared to our small little cottage. I see four chimneys on the roof, and smoke is coming out of the biggest one. It's a two-story lumber house with a wide porch that has a swing on the side. 

We often come by here since the kids are attached to the Olsens and are too, but I'm nervous for some reason. It's almost as if I'm unwelcomed, and it's the first time it's bothering me since I got here. 

"Mama, look, there's a snowman!" Sana points in no small snowman on the side of their house. It had a red scarf and even a carrot as a nose. Two pebbles, I assume, as eyes and a curved line for a smile

"It's cute and nice, isn't it?" I smile while turning the engine off and reaching behind me to unbuckle Yume.

"I cwan do it," he whispers quietly, but he doesn't move to stop me, my boy is too gentle at times. He just purses his lips while he watches my hands unbuckle him from the car seat. 

"I know baby, but I don't want you to crease your clothes" I brush his pants and shirt then pull him out as gently as I can. "Now, you can put on your coat, and Sana would open your door for you."

I step out of the car just as the two were already out and walking to the porch. As if Mira was watching from somewhere, the big and heavy double doors of the house opens to reveal a well-lit home with her tall self standing by the doorway. 

"Babies!" 

Before I can shout at them to not run, they were already sprinting to her. My heart caught in my throat when Yume starts slipping on the last step up the stairs. I find myself running myself, but thankfully Mira caught him before he hit his face.

"My loves, I know you're excited to see me, but safety is the utmost importance!" Mira softly chided them while she pulls them in her arms. 

"We're sorry."

"We're slowly."

Both Yume and Sana reply.

I breathed a sigh of relief, a puff of white smoke clouding my vision from my breath. "Thank you, Aunt Mira,"

"As I always said, I insist you call me Äiti."

I blush but didn't say anything else as we step in the warmth of her home. She's been insisting I call her Mom since the time we met in Japan, but I still don't think I have the right to call her. The kids have resigned themselves to calling her Mama recently, which made Mira so happy that she bought them a two-tiered cake as a celebration. 

"What's up, cupcake?" Tapio says, he lumbers over to us as he emerges from the living room. He is different compared to Sven. He has dark curly hair and dark green eyes, which was a bit contrasting from Sven. 

"Hi," I greeted while taking my coat off from the heat of the house. I hung my jacket on the coat hanger just beside the door, pulled the kid's coats off, and hung it for them. "Nothing much, you?"

He grins, "Oh, you know busy making food for my future kids," he winks at me then looks at Yume, who was standing and gazing around the high ceilings.

I feel bad for Yume that he's small and that he lives in place of giants. He has to crane his neck upward twenty-four-seven, and being in the Olsens house is no help either. Tapio picks him off the floor, completely surprising the kid

"Wunky!" Yume squeals.

"No, Daddy!" 

"Hey, stop teaching the kid wrong things," Sven says as he emerges from the stairs. He suddenly stops when our eyes met. "Wow, you look nice."

I feel my face go warmer. "Thanks and you too"

"Do I look nice too? Do I? Do I?" I hear Sana ask Mira. 

Mira laughs, "of course, my cute baby."

"Dad is already in the dining room, grumbling how hungry he is, so we better go" Sven suddenly takes my hand and pulls me to the dining room's direction. 

My heart accelerates because of it. It's strange to have your handheld by a boy. I've never liked nor touched a boy like this, and it was oddly...nice. I follow behind him as I see Yosef having an intense staring contest with the whole fried chicken. 

"Sorry we took so long," I say to him. I can't believe I made them wait, but we weren't precisely late. Is it past six already? I look at my wrist but realize I'm not wearing a watch. 

"you're fine dear, it's one of my progeny is the goddamn problem."

"Yosef! Language!" Mira shouts while covering Sana's ears. "And he'll be late, he says, he just needs to look for something, and then he'll come. We should eat. First, you must have been famished from school and working so much."

"Thank you" I smile 

"Ooh, Ami! You should try this!" Sven pulls me to a seat beside him and started putting food on my plate. "Honestly, human, you're too thin for your own good."

***