Monday, August 16, 2010

The Only Love Story I can Write

‘Why can’t women conceive by themselves?’, I asked Jen this once, in between the Panini I was trying not to finish, and Jen stuffing her face with roast medallions and enough rice to feed Africa. The pig. I wonder where she keeps all that? This was supposed to be a quick lunch out but who cares if we were late. We deserved a leisurely meal once in a while. The office was making us hormonal.

But really, why can’t women conceive by themselves? Anyway, nobody had fathers in this age anymore. A family of two is quite normal. I would even be bold as to say it’s a new wave of lifestyle, coveted by those who are burdened by a husband on top of having to raise kids. I could hear my officemate’s resigned voice when she told me ‘You’re lucky’ that I didn’t have the same complications she had. It was as if the women of the world thought of the worse scenario even before conceiving children. And when they were met with cooperation and a command of responsibility, they grew suspicious rather than elated. Something somewhere was bound to go wrong.

I should know. I was a single mother raised by a single mother, who before that was raised by a widow whose husband died when she was five (so technically, a single mother too). Three generations of alpha females, who found life to be, well, easier when they were in full command.

When Jen found out I was pregnant, she didn’t even give the complimentary cry of surprise. She just smoked a ring directly on my face and shrugged. ‘Well, what were you expecting, dear?’ she said to me. ‘It was bound to happen. The child, I mean. Not the man. It’s a difficult cycle to escape.’ So, it came like second nature for me too, that aspect of not having a father for my kid. It’s easier to imagine a lifetime worth of shopping looking for clothes or going to the salon for a makeover. There will be lots of late night talks about boys and eating ice cream over heartbreaks. But there will never be sports games, never riding on somebody’s shoulders going home. There’s never going to be that protective figure before she goes on dates or somebody to teach her how to fix a car. But, oh well. Just one of life’s slight inconveniences, I guess.

‘What, you mean like create rather than procreate, like a worm?’ Jen replied in between bites. I rolled my eyes and gave her a catty look before she diverted this into some issue about herself again.

‘You shit. Be serious.’

‘I am serious! Your mother should be chastising you for thinking of such a thing. Ask the bible. God just doesn’t want us to be independent. Remember that rib story? How he fashioned women out of man, because he was too tired to create something original? We weren’t planned, dear. The man just wanted a plaything. He provided it. It’s there somewhere, Genesis Chapter 3, section who gives a damn.’ This tirade of sorts was typical of Jen who was the biggest atheist this side of Cebu. You’d think this city so proud of its religiosity would drive away people like her. But she loved it here, this Manileña. And she especially loved seeing me cringe since she knew about my family’s devoted Catholic background. But she turned somber all of a sudden.

‘Seriously, if you didn’t want the complication, you should’ve just had a one night stand. You should’ve just stood at Junquera and waited for a foreigner to pick you up.’

I let out a mocking gasp. ‘And miss out on love, and the hot nights that go with it?’ I asked her. This time it was she who rolled her eyes. But she was wrong though. There was no complication to speak of. The father didn’t even know.


I usually ignored the inkling to think about things. I move it out of the way because I didn’t to be one of those people who psychoanalyzed themselves for entertainment. Goodness knows there’s too much of that in the workplace already, with agents telling you this is just a temporary step to their dream, to fill a hole in the resume. Then, it turns out they end up staying in the company for two to three years. Broken dreams walking like drones. It took me a moment to realize though that was exactly what I was doing the whole afternoon while rattling on to call center candidates about the difference of pronunciation and enunciation. Personally, I didn’t really care, but this is what they were paying me for. It was there, that niggling feel to wonder why I never told him. People found it so easy to assume I was just left behind, that I had no choice in the matter. It’s easier that way, so I let them continue with the assumptions. Maybe it was fear of commitment, I thought, in between teaching agents how to say Arkansas the right way. For the nth time it’s Ar-kan-saw. Ar-kan-saw. Ar-kan-saw! I say to those agents who stubbornly place their emphasis on the wrong syllables. I did only have all women roIe models in my life. There was never a union to speak off. Only strong individuals to follow. I hear the class rattle down the different states like Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa before they lost me in Oregon where my talent for multitasking kicked in. I was lost in my thoughts. Maybe it was fear for the loss of control. Dependence was something foreign to me. It wasn’t something I had the luxury of having. Even if I did, I don’t think I’d want it very much now. It would probably be hard to rely on someone that much, painful even. Maybe it was the child and how I didn’t want her to grow up with an incomplete father. Or maybe it was him. Then again, maybe it was me.


The house was passed on from one woman to the next. This is my mother’s house now. It could accommodate ten but there were only the three of us and the help. As is, there was so much space to be filled. No wonder we went shopping every Sunday. Andy was still at her playschool. She’ll be home anytime now with the Nana who adores her. They probably sneaked down to the mall for ice cream because she asked. I always had the luxury of being the first at home. The office was nearer anyway. That’s when I get a fill of me time like read a book or attempt to meditate because it seemed cool. This was routine. This is what we did everyday, and although the daughter seemed to have found comfort in the predictability of it all, it made me cringe for bigger things, a little chaos maybe, something controllable. Maybe I’ll get a credit card just for the heck of it or maybe I’ll finally have the time to go to the gym. Lose the remaining pounds from when Andy was born. It seemed such a long time ago that I went out and had a decent all-nighter. I’d been juggling so many things all my life, there’s this constant itch to find a new ball to juggle. The domesticity was stifling. The beef steak the help was cooking was pungent to my nose. Sometimes I have to remind myself everyday what I gave up those career-driven, party-all-nights for.


That’s why, you ungrateful slob. That beautiful child who just walked in with uneven bangs and chubby legs. I do not know how to describe her, this child. She looks nothing like me. She is nothing like me. She is softer, a bit more somber than what a child should be. Sometimes I catch her looking outside windows, staring at space and I know then, she grew up a little bit too fast. She’s three now. And she speaks with a perfect American accent one can only get from watching too much Spongebob reruns. She enters the door, looks at me accusingly from my lazy position in the sofa and then stomps off in front of the TV to flip channels. She finally settles on Nickelodeon as she always does and then sits there in silence. I wasn’t even sure if she was really watching, just staring. I look at Mom who just came in and flick my eyes on the daughter. She gestures for me to go outside with her, and we stand there in the garage, hushing our voices so the daughter won’t hear.

‘She’s not a very good liar like you were.’ Mom started.

‘Thanks for the compliment. What happened?’

‘One of the kids was asking why I always picked her up instead of Mom or Dad.’

‘And?’ I raised an eyebrow more for that nosey child than for my mother.

‘She told the kid you were teaching people how to speak right. Then the friend asked where the dad was.’ Mom was cleaning her cuticles nervously now.

‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing. Murmured something only she could hear, and then hid behind me. You used to tell them he was an astronaut stuck in space on a mission. That or he was dead.’

‘I really should teach her how to lie better.’

‘That’s the right way to handle it. I knew I taught you well.’

‘I’ll talk to her.’, I said to my mom somberly. ‘Do that.’

All single mothers prepare for this moment. It’s always there, hanging on the back of our minds like a dress that’s reserved in the closet for a special occasion. Even before they ask, we think of settings, of how to explain it that a child will at least partially comprehend, of how soon it would be before they asked. I look at my mother and I saw in her eyes the worry of how I would handle it. I knew she was silently reminding me that I was not this child. I’d like to think of myself stronger, that I never asked questions same as the way Andy was asking now. I’d like to think I came out of this world knowing some things weren’t just meant to be. I’d like to think my childhood was always happy and that whatever I lacked in not having a father, my mother more than made up for in time, attention and all the toys I could ever want. But childhood memories tended to be unreliable. They usually just hid the pain of what was. And so, I promised myself that I would be as honest to that child anxiously peeking at the doorway as I could. I led Andy into the room that we shared and placed her on my lap. She looks at me eagerly, biting the bottom of her lip. I take the pointer finger on her right hand ‘So, this one is mommy.’ and the other pointer on her left hand ‘And this one is daddy.’ The same scene happened twenty years ago with my mother sitting me on her lap and explaining just as I was trying with Andy now. ‘Once, they loved each other very much…’ I prayed that she would understand this. Maybe I’ll buy her a new doll tomorrow.


Who knows how memories work? Sometimes it comes in jolts, other times in painful pieces, and other times like a blurry haze. Sometimes the littlest things trigger them like the other day when friends and I were dining at a vintage restaurant and an antique camera was used as décor. I sat there thinking, he used to love photography or when a man would pass by wearing a baseball hat, and again I would think how he had a taste for those things too. Sometimes there were mannerisms or facial expressions the daughter unconsciously did that would give away fragments of him.

The funny thing about memories though, was that most of the time they only retain a careful distortion of the person. A myopic profile. Like something you read out of the newspaper about actors or politicians. Sometimes I forget what it was that caused our falling part. Other times, I’d second guess myself if it was the right decision not to tell him. He wasn’t a bad guy after all. He was in many ways the best friend I ever had even. Then, I would try really hard to remember the details of what we were, how in the end, we were so disastrous for each other. I would try to conjure all those situations when we fought over his dream over me. How he had so many plans but never enough executions when it came to our relationship. How he only seemed to find the time to see me when his office didn’t call for him. And even if he said I didn’t understand him, the truth was I actually did very well. He and I weren’t so different after all. I knew how it felt like to be caught in a competitive atmosphere. I knew how it felt like to have an ambition gnaw at you so bad, it becomes addictive. I knew how it was to push harder and harder and stop only until somebody gives you a pat on the back, a nod of the head. At the last part, there were only fights, cold wars, attempts to break-up and finally, the end. But what if we tried harder? God, I’m second guessing myself again.

Times like these I would Google him just to remind myself that I made the right decision. Everyone was on the Internet nowadays. It was so easy to gain access to lives. That’s why I never go online. People who demanded I send pictures of Andy, I just personally email. The internet was a small place. Who knew who might potentially tell? Singapore wasn’t such a far place and there were plenty of Pinoys there who can still get a hold of him and drop some hints. I can just picture out a few busybodies who think it moral to let him know, ‘Isn’t this your ex? Kid sure looks a bit like you.’ I dread that moment. That’s why I never e-mailed him back although he’s tried several times over the years to contact me. He’s a little skinnier now, his face a little thinner. All that his page contained was an extension of his corporate life. ‘Congratulations, Accounts, for a successful leadership seminar!’ or something like ‘Noodles at 2 in the morning. I love the office when it’s quiet.’ Yes, I made the right decision.


The daughter was thriving. Mom suggested we lengthen her play hours so she can have access to more kids, build more social skills. It seems to be working because she was less likely to linger on doors now. A few more weeks and she’ll be enrolled to a formal school. On weekends, friends and I would try to take her somewhere new. To Busay one time to let her pick her own flowers, then to Mactan the next where she built sand castles in the beach the whole afternoon while we drank beer in the shade. This weekend, we brought her to one of those hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Danao where there was fresh seafood and ice cream with nangka. And in between the joking and the ribbing and passing Andy around, a phone rings. It was mine. A foreign number. Jen sees the apprehension on my face and knew what I was thinking. I decline the call. A couple more rings and everyone in the group started to get agitated too as if they could feel the tension I was feeling. ‘Mom, who’s that?’ Andy asked. ‘Nobody, Ands. Just work.’ I tell her and turn the phone to silent mode. But the phone was still blinking and Andy kept looking at it, then back at me. ‘Andy dear, let’s go see the fishes.’ Jen suggests and leads Andy out while all the rest enter into petty conversations for my sake. ’Hello?’ a voice with too much white noise in the background says. A ghost has been reincarnated. Our lives were about to change.

I started to dread going home for fear he’d drop by anytime. I remembered he had a tendency of doing that a while back even if he did tell me when exactly he’d be in Cebu on account of some business he had to attend to. We need to talk, he said. And suddenly, all these questions came swarming back like a festering wound. Who had told him? Was he planning to stay? Was he going to fight for Andy? Was he going to brainwash my girl and blame me because she didn’t have a dad? Of course he was. I saw Andy only in the late evenings when she was too sleepy to badger me about anything. She was at that stage when she was asking too many questions, and I was just too drained to answer all of them. I knew I was being unfair to her but I just wanted to be alone.


The day he was supposed to come, I allowed Andy to be absent from school. I told her she’d be meeting someone today. I let her wear her new dress, placed barrettes on her hair, splashed her with a bit of cologne and tied her shoes just right even if she kept on squirming, as anxious as I was about the visitor. I wonder if he’d still recognize me. I looked at the mirror and remembered I was quite different from my three-years-ago self. I had a motherhood aura to me now. The house shorts I wore to hide my over preparedness for his coming hugged a little too much of my butt and belly. The shirt was branded but it looked cheap on me. I wondered if I should just wear something smarter and risk him seeing my eagerness. I told Andy to watch TV while I prepare for snacks and contemplated on changing again. But there was no time. Because there he was, opening the door to our gate like he once did so many times before, not even asking permission. Just entering. He was skinnier with makings of a goatee. And he no longer wore one of those casual sports shirts like he did back then. For some reason, I had the urge to laugh and joke about how spiffy he was looking almost as if he was wearing a costume. But his demeanor matched the polo shirt. He caught me with a spatula in one hand as I signaled for him to enter through the other door. I fussed over my hair for the last time and opened the screen door widely. There was a quake in my voice when I greeted him and his own was a little bit too loud, filling in the empty house. We made small talk about how the house hasn’t changed, how he still remembered the Victorian painting on the wall. His eyes trained on a Chinese ceramic vase we both once gave to my mother for her birthday. It seemed like we were in a movie and were trading dialogues, playing parts for each other. How is Singapore, I asked. Fine. How’s the crowd at the call center? Constipated. How long will you be staying? A few weeks for vacation. Where’s Tita? Raiding the stores for cookbooks, on my order.

Then, just as unprepared as I was for his coming, we were just unprepared for Andy to walk in. She was stuck there in the middle of the living room, suspended in time. My breath caught in my throat. I don’t know how he felt at that moment, sitting beside me. I couldn’t even look at him. It seemed all of us were too nervous to move, our hearts too loud in our ears until Andy came closer and promptly put herself on my lap. She was hesitant about who the stranger was. It was the first time she saw a man at home except for my friends whom she all called Titos. Frankly, they didn’t count for men at all. I noticed how she was scuffing her shoe back and forth the rug. But this was her home. That was probably the only thing stopping her from going back to the TV room. And she didn’t look. Even when her elbow was almost touching his arm. I forced some lightness out of my voice and prompted her to look at him. ‘Ands, say hello to…Tito’, I cajoled her. ‘Hello Tito.’, she promptly calls out without looking at him. ‘You want to prepare Tito a snack? Why don’t you bring him some of those cookies from the fridge?’. I was not prepared for their meeting. Suddenly, Andy had seemed too small for her age. And I find myself counting how many years it had been, how many birthdays missed, how many giggles lost, how many wounds unbandaged all because he didn’t know. Had he wanted to know? Andy scuffles to the kitchen, leaving us behind. His hands were in his chin, in his lips. They were quivering slightly, his breath heavy.

‘Ours?’, he asked softly. I nodded.

‘When?’. He put his head on his hands like it was hurting him.

‘Then.’ I knew I was his headache. I was bracing for the question that would come next. I didn’t prepare for it because I knew I’d come out with psychological generic answers.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I had no answer, not a suitable one anyway.

‘I mean, was I really that bad? Did I hurt you that much? Would it have been so awful?’. Yes. Yes. Yes. I thought. I mean. Yes. No. Yes. On some days, No. No. Yes. I needed time to think about this. Was he really expecting an answer from me this soon? I could not think, could not speak even in monosyllabic tones that were once so popular with the two of us when we were trapped in each other’s misery. There would be no answers now. Only questions. But what difficult questions they were. Not even enough for the few weeks of vacation he was planning to have. Still, it was a start.

Andy walks in, carrying the plate of Oreos I’d told her to fetch. She places it on the table, the contact of glass on glass the only sound in the room. She sits on my lap, this time a little more confident to look at him. I think I heard her say Hi although I can’t really be sure now. I was losing track of where I was, Andy’s hands on my own, a child’s curiosity, the scuffle of his shoe on marble, a look, her untarnished question which expected only honest answers that adults sometimes cannot give, a lift of the head, a gaze----

‘Are you my daddy?’ she asks from out of nowhere.

He does not even look at me to confirm. ‘Yes. I am. Hi.’

‘I knew it was you. What took you so long?’, she asks flippantly, unfazed by his answer. A knowing gaze so very much like his own. He seems surprised by this little girl, so confident all of a sudden in what she can get away with.

This is when he looks at me, anger in his eyes. Anger for me. ‘I lived very far away. It took me so long to come home. I had to take a plane and a car and walk all the way here. It’s that far.’ He opens his arms wide to emphasize the distance. And I can hear a slight O coming out from the little girl’s lips.

‘Mom, can I show him my room?’ she asks me. He’s already seen it, Ands, I wanted to tell her. But she was already taking the first steps to the stairs. The whole afternoon they sat side by side, trading stories back and forth. Are you going to school? What’s your job? Do you know how to draw Dora? What did you do on your last birthday? Do you like dogs? Why did you leave me? I like fried chicken. You too? I have another grandmother? Are you going to live with us now? Mom doesn’t like it when you bring your shoes inside. Yes, he knew.

I’d come in once in a while between checking on dinner and talking to Mom who just came home gunning me with all kinds of questions. But most of the time, I just look at them from afar. How they unknowingly look like each other when they bow their heads. How they tentatively try to touch and pepper it with excuses. You have some crumbs on your chin, he says. Can I touch your ears, she asks. How they seem to trust each other right away. Surprising for a child as cautious as my daughter. Our daughter. The daughter that came from both of us at one time.

I look at them staring at each other across the dinner table with my mother acting as mediator and smile knowingly at the answer that just came to me why women weren’t supposed to conceive alone after all. Because sometimes, with the lucky ones, they experience first hand how it is when a man loves them without condition. For a man to love them just because. Even if it is the only point in time they get to experience that feeling. Maybe it’s the only point that counts.

They smile. They laugh. He makes a cautious goodbye with a promise to come back the day after. She accepts it with equal caution but with no fuss. Whereas I, had he been my father, would’ve badgered him with a bullet of questions, a room of accusations, an insatiable need to posses. She takes it with consolation. And I knew just then, she grew up a little bit too fast. She’s so different from me, this daughter. Sometimes I think that’s the best thing about her.

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