PART 1: The Missing Letter

The first shirt I pulled from the box was neon pink, size Large, and capable of ending my mother’s social life.

I held it up in our Quezon City living room.

Gold letters glittered across the chest.

PAMILYA BAUTISTA: PAGMAMAHALANG WALANG PANTY.

I stopped breathing.

My sister Chloe leaned over my shoulder with an iced coffee in one hand and her phone in the other.

Then she made a noise like a dying motorcycle.

“Ate,” she wheezed. “Love without panties?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just reading the family values.”

“CHLOE.”

Too late.

Nanay Imelda came charging out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“Ano? Bakit kayo sumisigaw?”

I slowly turned the shirt around.

Nanay adjusted her glasses.

She read it once.

Then again.

Her face changed so fast I actually took one step backward.

“No.”

“Ma—”

“No.”

She snatched the shirt from me and rubbed one gold letter with her thumb as if the missing A might appear if she bullied the fabric hard enough.

The motto was supposed to say PAGMAMAHALANG WALANG PANTAY.

Love without equal.

Instead, two hundred reunion shirts announced that the Bautista family believed in love without underwear.

Nanay tore open the next box.

Panty.

Third box.

Panty.

Children’s sizes.

Panty.

Even the tiny shirt for three-year-old Migo had WALANG PANTY shining across it in cheerful gold foil.

Chloe sat on the sofa and folded in half laughing.

“Hoy!” Nanay snapped. “Hindi nakakatawa!”

“It’s a little funny, Ma.”

“Forty-five thousand pesos is not funny!”

That killed my laugh.

The shirts were for the 50th Bautista Grand Family Reunion in Pansol. Nanay had paid most of the forty-five thousand pesos from her Christmas bonus because half our relatives had promised to send their share “next week,” which in Bautista language meant after the Second Coming.

My father used to organize the reunion with her. After he died, Nanay kept doing it alone while Tita Baby criticized everything from the menu to the font on the tarpaulin.

This year, eighty-nine-year-old Lola Belen was coming from Iloilo.

Nanay wanted one perfect photo with everybody in it.

Instead, we looked like a cheerful no-underwear cult.

“I’m calling the printer,” I said.

The manager answered on speaker.

I explained.

Then he said the sentence that nearly sent Nanay through the ceiling.

“Ma’am, approved proof po kasi.”

I opened the Viber thread.

There it was.

Three weeks earlier, the shop had sent the final layout to Cousin Jayson, whom I had asked to double-check it because I was at work and Nanay was fighting with the caterer.

Jayson had replied at 2:15 in the morning with one thumbs-up emoji.

I called him.

“Did you even open the proof?”

Silence.

“Jayson.”

“Hindi.”

Nanay made the sign of the cross, and I hung up before she needed confession.

The printer refused a refund. No time to reprint. Our two rented minibuses were arriving before sunrise.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go to the mall. Plain shirts. White, pink, anything. We’ll buy one hundred now and figure out the rest.”

Nanay stared at me.

“No.”

“Ma.”

“No.”

“You cannot put Lola in this.”

“Why not?”

“Because she puts a hand towel over the TV when men kiss on teleseryes.”

Nanay picked up the shirt.

Her eyes were wet now, which scared me more than the yelling.

“I worked for that money, Mari.”

“I know.”

“I skipped buying new glasses.”

I looked at her old frames, one arm repaired with clear tape.

“This year I wanted one thing that looked nice,” she said.

My anger disappeared.

Then Nanay inhaled, straightened her shoulders, and became terrifying again.

“Isusuot natin.”

I blinked.

“What?”

“Lahat.”

“Ma, no.”

“Forty-five thousand pesos. Two hundred shirts. Isusuot natin.”

Chloe whispered, “This is how dictators are born.”

Nanay pointed at her.

“Especially you.”

At six in the morning, the first minibus honked outside.

Relatives poured into our driveway carrying coolers, pillows, rice cookers, and enough spaghetti to feed a barangay.

Nanay stood by the boxes handing out neon pink packages like ammunition.

Nobody had opened theirs yet.

Then Tita Baby’s SUV turned onto our street.

Nanay saw it.

So did I.

And suddenly the missing letter was not our biggest problem anymore.

PART 2: Who Saw the Video

By nine-thirty, the Pansol resort looked like somebody had detonated a pink highlighter beside a swimming pool.

Everywhere I turned, relatives were unfolding shirts and screaming.

“Bakit panty?!”

“Nasaan ang A?!”

“Imelda, ano ba naman ito?”

My cousin Macmac held his XXXL against his body and looked personally betrayed.

“Ate Mari, I’m not going out nang ganito.”

“You’re already outside.”

“I mean emotionally.”

Nanay planted herself beside the changing rooms.

“Magpalit kayo!”

Nobody moved.

She clapped once.

“Ngayon!”

Grown engineers, nurses, and one barangay kagawad obeyed.

The worst part was Tita Baby.

She changed into the shirt purely so she could display the evidence.

Then she marched into the pavilion with both hands spread beneath the words like a game-show model.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” she announced. “Behold! Forty-five thousand pesos!”

“Baby,” Nanay warned.

“Hindi, Imelda. Explain mo. Fifty years of Bautista dignity, tapos ito?”

She pointed at her chest.

“Walang panty?”

Some cousins laughed.

Nanay didn’t.

I hated Tita Baby in that moment. She could see Nanay was humiliated and decided to enjoy it.

“Enough,” I said.

Tita Baby looked at me.

“Ay, Mari. Ikaw ba nag-proofread?”

That landed.

Because, technically, I had handed the proofreading job to Jayson.

My face burned.

Before I could answer, Macmac came running from the office carrying three black permanent markers.

“I can fix it!”

He could not fix it.

He tried squeezing an A between the T and Y.

The ink spread through the dri-fit fabric like an oil spill.

Now the shirt said PAN▉Y.

Chloe stared at it.

“That somehow looks more obscene.”

Macmac dropped the marker.

“Just kill me na lang.”

I tried gold craft tape. It peeled off in the heat.

Another aunt suggested flower brooches, which somehow made things worse.

Meanwhile, Tita Baby disappeared.

That should have worried me.

Instead, I was busy catching Chloe filming Uncle Jojo wearing his shirt backward.

“Delete that.”

“No.”

“Chloe.”

“This is family history.”

“This is evidence.”

She grinned.

Fifteen minutes later, her phone began vibrating nonstop.

She looked at the screen.

Her smile vanished.

“Oh.”

“What?”

“Don’t get mad.”

“Chloe.”

“Define mad.”

She had posted fifteen seconds of Nanay yelling, Macmac ruining a shirt, and Tita Baby declaring, “Fifty years of Bautista dignity!”

Caption:

One missing letter destroyed the bloodline.

It had 380,000 views.

I grabbed her wrist.

“Delete it!”

“I can, but people already screen-recorded—”

From the neighboring resort, someone yelled over the wall.

“WALANG PANTY FAMILY!”

A chorus of laughter exploded.

Nanay went perfectly still.

I expected her to throw a slipper.

Instead, she walked away.

That was worse.

I found her in the empty karaoke room, sitting on a plastic monobloc chair beside a dead microphone.

She had folded her arms over the words on her shirt.

“Ma.”

“Leave me.”

I sat beside her anyway.

Outside, cousins shrieked in the pool.

“I’m sorry about the proof.”

“Kasalanan ni Jayson.”

“I gave it to Jayson.”

“That was your first mistake.”

She almost smiled.

Then her mouth tightened.

“I just wanted the picture.”

I knew exactly which picture she meant.

At home, our reunion photos covered one wall. In the old ones, Tatay was always beside her, grinning, usually holding barbecue tongs.

After he died, Nanay spent two years standing at the edge before she finally moved to the middle.

“I know,” I said.

The karaoke-room door slammed open.

Tita Baby stood there, smiling.

Behind her were two resort workers carrying clear plastic bags full of plain white T-shirts.

My stomach sank.

“I solved it,” she said. “Two hundred plain shirts. I paid.”

Of course she said it like that.

Tita Baby lifted one white shirt.

“No typo. No scandal. No kahihiyan. We take the official photo in these.”

Nanay’s jaw tightened.

Tita Baby lowered her voice.

“And after this, maybe let somebody else organize next year.”

There it was.

Not the shirts.

The crown.

I stood up so fast my chair scraped backward.

“No.”

Both of them looked at me.

Tita Baby blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t get to use one stupid letter to take this away from her.”

“Mari—”

“No. She planned everything. You complained about everything. Those are not the same job.”

Tita Baby’s face went hard.

Before she could answer, a horn sounded at the front gate.

One long blast.

Then another.

Outside, people started shouting.

“Dumating na si Lola!”

Nanay closed her eyes.

Tita Baby smiled.

And I realized she was already carrying one plain white shirt toward the door.

PART 3: What Lola Asked For

Lola Belen arrived wearing a lavender Sunday dress, low black shoes, and the expression of a woman who had survived nine children and therefore feared absolutely nothing.

Her wooden cane hit the pavement.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Two hundred relatives covered their chests with towels, bags, even a tray of barbecue.

Tita Baby moved first.

“Mama!”

She hurried forward carrying the clean white shirt.

“Mabuti dumating ka. May problema.”

Nanay stood behind me near the pavilion.

She suddenly looked very small.

Tita Baby held up her typo shirt.

“Look what Imelda ordered.”

Lola squinted.

“Lumapit ka.”

Tita Baby stepped closer.

Lola read the gold letters.

Her eyebrows rose.

Behind me, Chloe whispered, “We are all going to hell.”

Tita Baby pointed toward Nanay.

“Forty-five thousand pesos, Ma. Tapos she’s forcing everybody to wear it. Nakakahiya.”

She lifted the white replacement.

“But I fixed it. We can take the family photo properly.”

Lola looked from the white shirt to the pink one.

Then she looked at Nanay.

“Imelda.”

Nanay came forward.

“Yes, Ma.”

“Bakit ka umiiyak?”

Nanay immediately touched her cheek.

“I’m not.”

“You are a bad liar.”

Nanay swallowed.

“The shop made a mistake. No refund. Ayaw ko lang masayang.”

Tita Baby cut in.

“Mama, hindi lang pera. Tingnan mo naman—”

Lola lifted one finger.

Tita Baby stopped talking.

It was magnificent.

Lola pulled Nanay’s collar close and read it again.

Then her shoulders started shaking.

She was laughing.

A full, wheezing, rosary-bouncing laugh.

“Walang panty!” she gasped.

The whole pavilion cracked.

Cousins started laughing.

Uncles doubled over.

Even Nanay made one shocked sound through her tears.

Tita Baby stood there holding the white shirt like she had just been betrayed by cotton.

Lola wiped her eyes.

“So much drama over isang letra.”

“Mama!”

Lola pointed her cane at Tita Baby.

“Baby, ikaw ang pinakamaingay. Kaya lalo kang nakakatawa.”

That finished us.

Then Lola turned to Nanay.

“Nasaan ang shirt ko?”

Nanay blinked.

“Ma?”

“Yung pink.”

Tita Baby stepped forward.

“Mama, may white na—”

“Ayoko.”

Lola held out her hand.

“Give me the bad one.”

I ran to the box and brought her an Extra Large.

Lola took off her light cardigan and shoved both arms into the neon pink shirt right over her lavender dress.

The hem reached her knees, the gold letters crooked across her chest.

PAGMAMAHALANG WALANG PANTY.

She looked down, then up.

“Bagay sa akin.”

The resort exploded.

People cheered so loudly guests next door climbed onto chairs to look over the wall.

Tita Baby still had not moved.

Lola turned to her.

“Suotin mo yung pink.”

“Mama.”

“Fifty years ang reunion. Isang typo lang, susuko ka na?”

Tita Baby’s lips disappeared into a line.

Lola tapped her cane.

“Pink.”

I have never loved an elderly woman more.

Tita Baby slowly dropped the white shirt.

Then she pulled the neon one over her head.

The cheering got even louder.

Nanay covered her mouth.

I went to her and tugged her hands down.

“No hiding.”

“Mari.”

“Nope. Your rule. We’re wearing them.”

She looked at me.

Then at Lola, who was now ordering tall cousins into the back row.

Relief softened Nanay’s face.

We lined up beside the pool: two hundred Bautistas in neon pink.

No towels. No bags. No hiding.

Even Macmac wore his ruined black-marker version.

The neighboring teenagers chanted, “WALANG PANTY!”

This time Nanay laughed.

Chloe climbed onto a plastic chair with her phone.

“Okay! Everybody squeeze in!”

Tita Baby tried to hide behind Uncle Jojo.

Lola hooked her cane around Tita Baby’s ankle and dragged her two inches forward.

“Diyan ka.”

I almost fell into the pool.

Chloe raised the phone.

Then she froze.

“Oh my God.”

“What now?” I shouted.

Her stupid video had passed six million views.

The printing shop had commented:

WE ARE SO SORRY, BAUTISTA FAMILY. FULL REFUND. PLEASE DON’T KILL US.

I showed Nanay.

Her eyes widened.

“Refund?”

“Full.”

She grabbed the phone.

“Forty-five thousand?”

“Yes.”

She stared at the comment.

Then she looked across the front row at Tita Baby.

Slowly, a smile spread across her face.

Not a nice smile.

A victorious one.

Tita Baby saw it.

“Ano?”

Nanay handed the phone back to Chloe.

“Nothing.”

Then she straightened her typo shirt.

“Picture na.”

Lola lifted her cane in the air like a queen holding a sword.

Chloe set the timer.

I ran beside Nanay. She grabbed my hand, and Lola grabbed the other.

The phone flashed.

Two hundred people screamed.

That photo is now the biggest frame in our living room.

Tatay is not in it. I still wish he were.

But Nanay is in the middle, laughing with her eyes closed, Lola in neon pink beside her, every ridiculous gold letter visible.

No one is hiding anything.

Not even Tita Baby.

Especially not the panty.