My brother led us deeper into Chinatown to a place he and Noah had gone before, where an enormous crab covered in ocean dust guarded the entrance and lorded over a collection of lobsters in a fluorescently-lit tank. It was already after eleven o’clock but a large table of at least ten sat in a corner finishing their meal, and another group of six was coming in behind us. Chinatown has traditionally been the place to grab a late-night meal when other places have shut down.
We ordered family-style – some soup, some duck, some pork, some Chinese cabbage, some rice – and as we filled ourselves I recounted the first time we had Peking Duck – at the wedding of our cousin in New Jersey when we were just children. Telling Noah about it, we realized that I remembered it better than my brother, though the reminder brought back the way the dish was served. We didn’t delve too deeply into conversation as it was nearing midnight, and really, it was enough just sharing a meal together.
The wait staff were starting to get antsy too, so we finished just about everything on the plates before us, piled on our coats, and made motions to head back into the cold night, reasonably warmed and fortified. Before stepping out, we came up with a game plan for getting home: we would walk out of the traffic entanglement of Chinatown, head down to the Four Seasons overlooking the Public Garden and splurge on an Uber from there to the condo.
Three Ilagan gentlemen weaved their merry way through Chinatown, over a hundred years of living between the three of us – and soon found ourselves skirting Boston Common and a stretch of trees lit in various Christmas colors. My brother asked about Kira then, saying he had seen I’d written something about it but hadn’t read it, and I was suddenly touched by his remembering, as well as by the return of my old friend to this holiday season, if only by reference and recall.
It struck me then as we crossed the midnight hour, that this was the Holiday Stroll. Without planning or fanfare or even the most rudimentary understanding of how it all happened, we were in the middle of our very first Midnight Holiday Stroll, and my brother and nephew were part of it. Sometimes tradition finds a way of happening even when you’ve given up on it. As we walked past the Boston Public Garden, site of our very first Holiday Stroll – we ducked into the Four Seasons and looked at Uber rates. They were starting at $30 for just a few blocks, which seemed criminal, and, truth be told, I wasn’t quite ready to end our walk, so we continued on, my brother and my nephew and me.
When left to our own devices, my brother and I usually get along quite well, and I was just starting to see how other family members have inadvertently set us up in adversarial roles over the years, through various expectations and unfair comparisons. Comparison is the thief of joy, especially when used among siblings. We may not have realized that in time, but we were together now, and there was still the love of two brothers between us, and that’s all that mattered on this night.
