Her bottom lip wobbles.
‘You’ve fallen for him?’
Princess takes a shuddery breath and gives me an infinitesimal nod. ‘But I can’t take it any further than flirtation, I really can’t.’ She slips her eye mask back on as if the conversation is closed.
‘Princess, how do you know that?’
‘I know it.’
Is it time to pull out my trump card? I’ve been doing a little work behind the scenes but I’m just not sure how this will land. Seeing her like this, avoiding the group, forlorn and lonely, it’s not right. She’s a firecracker of a human and all she’s missing is love. ‘What if there was a way to reverse the curse?’
This time, she pushes the silken eye mask atop her head. Her eyes are wide – with hope? ‘How?’
Here we go. Make or break. ‘I did a little digging online, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I researched curses and found that an albularyo might be able to help.’
‘A Filipino witch doctor?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You found one?’
I hope I haven’t culturally overstepped, having no idea about what exactly Princess believes or even if I have the right, but simply wanting to help my friend who is clearly carrying the weight of trauma from her losses.
I nod. ‘I found one. And I might have crossed the line, but I told her that you’ve been cursed by a jealous rival – I hope that’s OK?’
Princess grins. ‘It’s not exactly a secret, is it? I tell everyone because it’s best they know. Men do fall in love with me at an alarming rate, so it’s mostly to manage their expectations.’
I swallow a smile. ‘Right. Well, I told her about your case and she’s confident that she can help. She educated me a little about how our physical health is entwined with emotional and spiritual health and it made sense to me that what you’re suffering is quite complex. There are many elements at play here.’
‘And the rival?’
‘The albularyo agreed there very well could be a curse, or it could be that you’re afraid to love again because you’ve already suffered so much loss. She’s prepared to video-call with you until you can get to Manila to meet her in person.’
‘Hm. And did this albularyo come highly recommended? How do you know she’s legitimate?’ She narrows her eyes as if she’s not quite sure yet whether to trust in this new development.
‘She wasn’t recommended, and I don’t know if she’s legitimate, but what I do know is she was very understanding about your plight, sensitive to your needs and seemed to have plenty of ideas about possible fixes, not only for love but for letting go.’
Princess gasps. ‘Letting go?!’
I sit at the end of the bed. ‘Letting go,’ I confirm. ‘Princess, do you blame yourself for their deaths?’
Her composure breaks. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I wasn’t there for them like I should have been. Not really. I’d been so obsessed by my work. Driven by making money. It’s all well and good for men to be like that, they get called ambitious, but when women do the same, they’re called money hungry, but still, it’s what gave me life. I wanted to be the best property developer in the world. And I strove hard for that. My husbands enjoyed life on the back of my toil. But in turn, it ruined them. Ricky drank too much, Arturo smoked too much, and Miguel couldn’t outrun his age and his love for sweets like halo-halo.’
‘But none of that is your fault.’
‘You say that, but if I’d been more present, I could have hidden the whiskey, thrown the cigarettes away, demanded they look after themselves better.’
‘They were all fully grown adults, quite capable of making their own choices. By the sounds of it, your marriages were all happy ones.’
Her eyes crinkle at the corners. ‘Very happy. We travelled and had a lot of fun together. The love was real.’
‘Isn’t that enough? They got the girl, they lived in the fast lane – what if that’s all they ever wanted?’
She double-blinks. ‘I’ve never thought about it that way before.’
