For the second time this month of December, we—in exclusion of my wife, Annalise—reached the nearest train station from our home again, from the subdivision. And I, on the way here, made sure I had calmed down.
I had to admit now.
Kiki didn't deserve my anger crack-up. It was so rude of me, I mustn't deny, to lose my full control over my emotions. I didn't expect her to be observing me all this time, of how I truly felt toward my wife; how my eyes yearn for something more than her subtle neglect. That, in truth, I must say my daughter had only spoken verity. And for that, after a realization about the issue, a couple of minutes after we hopped off the jeepney, I had felt the terrible need to say sorry to my daughter. For that second time. For pardon; of which, I got silence instead.
Now, in the train station.
First, we lined up to get tickets to the mainland, to our destination. Ticket line wasn't far-stretched long though; it only took us two minutes of waiting and stepping forward at times, until we reached the front, where train tickets are mainly sold. By this point, I told the agent I'd like to have two for myself and my daughter.
"Where to?" she asked, in tone like she already heard me the first time, yet decided to ask again. "Two tickets?"
"To the mainland," I repeated. "FTI Station."
By the stare she was giving me through her kind of suspecting eyes, almost similar to the driver and the other jeepney passengers before, I noticed that she was, in a way, accusing me something of a wrongdoing. "Is she your daughter?"
"FTI," I said the specific station, again, "and yes, she's my daughter."
"Pretty girl."
"Indeed she is," I agreed. "Like her mother."
"Is that true, little girl?" she asked Kiki, whom, as she stood downcast beside of me, looking gloomy. As if a cloudy day on Thursday afternoon. Like a below-average effort being exerted into something, as for her answer, Kiki nodded yes to the ticket agent. "Alright, then. Have a safe trip, you two."
Before the train arrived, Kiki and I waited half an hour. We sat on columned chairs; during that half an hour, there occurred soundless conversation between me and my daughter, exactly where we were sitting. Through my vision a little blurry but tolerable, to keep my mind off this silence so plain and sulking between us, I just counted how many passengers in this province were standing still; those who were lined up to get their tickets; those waiting for their turn at the front desk, and who were waiting for the train to come. In time, I reached only a small amount: twenty-five passengers, excluding me and my daughter. Aftercount I looked at Kiki; she remained quiet and reserved— she kept behaving this way ever since I shouted at her minutes back.
I asked for forgiveness again. How sorry am I for verbally lashing out to her... And yet, she didn't look at me like she believes it, this request for pardon. And for moments, as the train arriving to where we were waiting, Kiki kept her quiet as still as starless midnight sky. In return, I didn't push for a conversation. Like her, I sat and stood with my lips fully closed, and until then, the long-in-length transporter came and ready to be fared.
Kiki and I entered with no exchange of words. Between us was silence neither uncomfortable nor homelike. It was blank, like the empty spaces found in space. Not in point of black holes, but space. That, perhaps, might be waiting to be filled with conversation, a day-to-day talk. Just one topic. One and it would be filled. But still, none of us breathed a word even after the train doors shut.
The engine started once again.
At first, inside the train—similar to what I had observed at the waiting area—the passengers including us only amounted small; the spaces inside were enough to make us feel comfortable, make us not look haggard. And so because of it I'd have to be thankful. Great start. All of us had the luxury to sit our buttocks on train seats, and to feel the comfy materials of it, as the almost-cushions. At this stage, our baggage had the opportunity to be by our sides. In my case and Kiki's, we had her backpack and my little luggage filled with our selected clothes.
However, in due time, I knew new passengers were bound to come through the train's automatic doors. Sooner or later, the spaces inside would be filled by newcomers, as it usually does. Fortunately, we sat on the seats first. Now, I would never let anyone take our seats later, of course, until our final destination: FTI Station.
"Say, little one," I said, since I couldn't endure the silence any longer. "What if, for example, I answer what you asked of me before? Would that make our little strife voided? Again, I'm sorry... but I can't enjoy this trip if I can't at least talk to you. I hope you forgive me..."
No answer. Still quiet.
"It's your question before, months ago," I pushed. "About my friend, Maya."
"Oh," Kiki remembered. "About where she is now?"
I nodded.
"But Father, you answered that before," replied Kiki, as if she had already forgotten to sulk on me. "She is somewhere you cannot reach, that's what you said. No need to answer it again."
"Yes, that's correct. But what I said isn't the actual truth, you see... To put it more on point, I answered your question vaguely..."
"No way!"
"There's more to it," I said. "A reliable truth... You still interested to know that part of the story? Hidden part of the whole..."
"Of course, Father." For a moment, what I found in her tone still had something to do with our little misunderstanding earlier. I knew it was my bad of showing my tantrum, making her act this way. It was my shout, my lost of control there in the jeepney, that shut her mouth, limiting her words now. 'Now that's enough!' I exclaimed, in complete denial of what my wife lacks as a spouse, to me, as her husband. "What hidden part?"
"Alright, I'll tell you," I replied.
In a blink the fare ticket conductor showed up. He walked slow towards where we sat, each step making sure he checked every ticket of the passengers. I saw his face of non-expression on the way to us. I saw him nonchalant, yet focused on his job. I returned my look to Kiki.
"I hid this to you," I admitted. "Before I told you about that night in the carnival, I decided not to tell it. But, let me deal with that guy first, alright?"
"What guy, the conductor?"
"Yes."
The fare ticket conductor reached us a minute. He then asked where our tickets were, plain and simple. As response I showed our two tickets, the ones I bought at the train station. The conductor took the tickets, wrote on them, then returned them to my hand.
He moved on towards the next passengers, sitting few meters away from Kiki and I. For seconds I followed him through my eyes, 'till I got bored and switched to another passenger; and that passenger— she was reading a book, with a cover of The Count of Monte Cristo.
"So," I returned to my daughter. "The thing I'd tell you next— well, I was afraid you'd hear it at a very young age."
"Why?"
"Afraid you'd find that life isn't always made of sweets."
Kiki waited for me to continue.
"It can be bitter..."
Still, she said nothing.
"Truly, I'm sorry," I added. This time I said it a lot sincerely— like how sinners go to church every Sunday, confessing their hellbound sins to listening priests. "I mean it, I'm sorry. I just want you to set off hard feelings... As your father, I wanna make you know that she's sincere... she loves us... I never intended to lash out in anger... on you. Promise, from now on, I'll control it."
"Mother loves us in her own way," she responded, repeating what I wanted her to always put in mind. "I understand, Father. I'm deeply sorry too, you know? I know, I'm now doubting her many times... It's my own for wishing more of her time, but... as her daughter, of course I'd like time when we can bond.
"But you have to admit, Father," she added, "she's kind of been neglecting us in her own way. You have to admit it."
"Indeed she's a busy woman," I agreed then. "To make you feel better, I'll tell you this. I, myself, would like to demand more of her free time too. I swear to you."
"You see, Father? I know you feel me too... There is no point in denying."
"Every time she's at home," I continued, "every time I'm with her in the bedroom, if truth be told I'd like to have a break with her, you know? To feel her touch... and yet I can't. It's like, she doesn't want me to touch her, not at all. And I feel cold. I feel... alone."
A beat; this time, a silence of softness.
"So, I guess," I went on, "that you're right all along."
"Of what, Father?"
"Somehow, in someway, I've been unhappy with your mother..." I conceded. "For years gone by, as well as years to come, the spark we had faded out in the flow of time. In the back of my mind, I now... have doubts..."
At split-second; as if the hands of dozen clocks halted, time itself stopped inside the train. Amidst the cease, I recalled the cold nights I had in bedroom with my wife. Lonely nights to desperation, despite the fact she'd been sleeping with me from night to day. Resting. No sex.
Through clear images in my mind, I thought of myself alone every night. On king-sized bed, on it there lay me and my wife, with our backs facing each other; the lamps, off and pitch-black. And I saw myself there, picturing how I lay and I attempt to have sexual intercourse with her. Taking one in thousand chances, wishing her to accept my glad-seeming proposition. To sleep. And yet, through these rich images themselves, it turned out I always got rejected. "Not tonight," Annalise would say. "I'm tired."
Subsequently, I recalled one night when I wanted her so bad— Annalise was fast asleep with me by her side. I was looking at her; she had this face of goddess Aphrodite I could not seem to caress. Nor touch. As if sex had always been so far from reality. But rather than take advantage, of her unconsciousness, that night I just went to the bathroom alone and masturbated. I pictured our bygone intercourses, when we were younger— me in my thirties; she in her twenties. I had tried recalling it all, and it was all lifelike. The imagery, the passion, that I kind of felt pathetic just by thinking about it now, as I was here, inside the moving train. And here as it kept progressing, here sat a man who hadn't got laid for years.
Needless to say, I tried to let go of these thoughts; the looks of dismay on my face, of helplessness involving these petty urges—sexual urges—I set these all aside.
Instead, I put great effort to go back to the previous topic I opened with my daughter.
Of my old, lady friend Maya.
"In anyway," I said, "it'll be a long ride before FTI... Which means, I'd have time to narrate." Of how my friend couldn't be reached now. "It's all because she's dead," I told Kiki. "Gone, far from the land of the living. My little one, Maya has been dead for almost two decades."
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