The ravenette girl, Susan, who is no more than sixteen, looked at her mother with curious eyes as she leaned down the kitchen island. “You know, mom, it’s kind of bizarre how I never got to meet you as a teen. I only know this version of you,” Susan said absent-mindedly.

It was the 24th of December, which means Noche Buena! Susan was so excited for the many dishes to be eaten later at midnight that she offered help towards the preparation—that is, if moral support would be considered one.

Her mother, Sharon, smiled, taking a bowl filled with Filipino rice cake and placing it in front of her daughter. With her sing-song soft voice brought on by the Hiligaynon language, she uttered, “You know, your lola once told me that our favorite childhood food can take someone back in time; that’s why it’s always present on our dining table.”

The older-looking-glass image of the younger girl smoothly passed her a fork. “Why don’t you try it, darling?” Susan, without hesitation, immediately digged into the sticky dish after she dipped it into the home-made brown sugar sauce. As she looked up to present her gratitude towards her mother, a familiar set of identical dark brown orbs met hers.

Confused, she looked around in panic. The walls of their cream-colored home turned yellow, the marbled kitchen island became a picnic table with a promotional poster of a soda product attached to it, the melodious classical music became the chatter of teenagers, and Susan found herself sitting in front of a girl who could pass as her sister.

“Susan? What’s wrong?” The familiar stranger asked. “I-I…” Susan stuttered. She was scared! She’s so confused! “Who are you? Where am I?!” She questioned. No, she demanded the girl’s answer.
“Girl, stop with your role-playing antics! We’ve already finished English class, and yet you’re still internalizing your character.” The girl laughed. In a mocking yet exaggerated tone, she added, with context, referring to a reading requisite in her class, “You’re in my domain, Leonora NHS, Madam Esperanza, and I am Sharon, at your service.”

Susan, luckily, was intelligent enough to pick herself up and act as if nothing’s wrong, despite the storm on her mind. That’s my freaking mom! With the fakest laugh, “I’m just messing around!”
“I know,” said Sharon. “I really like your clothes today, especially the flowery details on your jeans. It’s the best outfit I’ve ever seen so far,” her same-age mother complimented. She was wearing a light pink floral blouse and a long purple skirt. Her footwear only consisted of flip-flops, unparalleled by her branded tennis shoes. “Huh? Isn’t this trendy in this timeline at least?” Susan muttered the last bit of her statement, making it audible to her only.

“Not for me, at least,” Sharon stated as she took out a cookie tin from her make-shift plastic school bag beside her, then opened it, revealing a couple of sweet potatoes that will be her recess snack for the whole day. “My older sister sews my clothes. Jeans are so expensive for my family that I could buy something more important than that. It isn’t my priority for the moment,” she took a bite of the purple-y vegetable before sighing, “though it would’ve been really cool if I had one in order to keep up with the trend.”

Susan kept quiet. She never knew that. Looking down, she noticed a packet of orange juice and a well-packed lunch box, something that Sharon typically makes for her, in front of her. ‘It’s very different from my mother’s,’ she noted. “Oh! These are the notes you’ve been requesting me to lend to you.” From her plastic bag, Sharon again dug something into it and took out a notebook and handed it to her future daughter.

Susan took it, assuming that the girl in her place before her screwed-up arrival here asked for it. She examined the notebook. Her mother’s handwriting was not yet the flawless one she had when she was older. This one was messier. The papers were often interchanging from blue lines to red and back again. Everything was attached with orange yarn, and the covers were from a plain folder. “Thanks, I’ll give it back to you… tomorrow.” Should I really say tomorrow?

“Don’t worry about that. I have made another copy for me. I’m sorry about the notebook, though.” Sharon took a bite of the sweet potato. “It’s repurposed. That’s why the pages are changing since some of them are from my middle school days and others are hand-me-downs.” She sported an unsure yet ashamed smile.

“Please don’t apologize! I think it’s resourceful,” Susan comforted. “Really? You don’t mind? I was a bit shy about it since our classmates’ things were brand new.” Susan shook her head. “It’s a very smart way to save and economically friendly too. Old or new, it still does its purpose.” Sharon nodded contently at her words while her future daughter succumbed into the darkest pit of realization.

“Anyway, while you’re at it, can you check my Christmas card project? Mrs. Delos Santos wanted a time capsule sort of that, she said to our future children. I think I’m going to be a girl’s mom. It’s in the back of the notebook, I think. The draft.”

Turning the pages until it reached the last page of the little repurposed notebook was a short poem:
From the moment you were born,
I’ll promise that with every beautiful thing, you’ll be adorned.
I’ll build a better home before you arrive.
I promise that I’ll thrive.
My love for you is timeless.
It’s existing today, tomorrow, and in the past nonetheless.

“Susan? What’s wrong?” An older version of Sharon appeared, mimicking what the younger her just stated. Susan smiled and reached out for her mother, giving her a big bear hug.

“I’ll thrive so that when my dreams arrive, every beautiful thing you will be adorned with, just like how you did when I was born.”