April/May 2005
Kimberly
I know that there's an old Spanish to English dictionary somewhere on our bookshelf. It's my father's, from when he was in college, and they're still required to learn our colonizers' language. I search through those dusty—sometimes, rotting—books and find it. Its pages are almost brown, and the texts aren't easy to read. But it's manageable, so I take it with me in my room.
Benjie said sueños. And according to the translation, it means dreams. He said something about seeing me in his dreams every night.
I laugh aloud at how cheesy it sounds that I almost want to cue in the Titanic song. But I also find it sweet and cute. And for that, I like him even more.
I place that old dictionary in the drawer of my desk, for I might need it again some other time.
The clock says it's late in the evening, and my eyes are tired from reading.
I lie down on my bed and close my eyes. And I smile to myself, knowing that I'll be having sweet dreams.
When I get to upgrade my wish, I'll yearn for not just dreams. It may not be for the present or the near future, but someday.
***
It's Sunday, and it's hot.
My mother asks me to go to the mall this afternoon and buy a few things at the supermarket. It's good news for me because I want an excuse to get out of the house. One, to cool down with the air-conditioning. Two, to be away from them for a few hours. And three, I need to check on some things online.
I'm in an internet café at the mall. The place is full, so I have to wait for ten or so minutes. They charge twice as much as the average rate, but it's the best I can do right now, so I just have to make it quick.
I reply to Lawrence's Friendster message first. They're already in the US. His message is short, and I just give him one-liners of what I've been up to since I last saw him here.
There's also one that Benjie sent yesterday.
'Hi there, KP. So...our new house seems okay. It's smaller, but it's in a secured compound, and I think that's good. It's boring here, and I can't wait to be back. How are you doing? I miss you <3. See you later ;-)'
I compose my reply and also keep it short.
'I'm fine. I just finished this book, The Cider House Rules. I'm in the mall right now, running errands. Good luck (as if you're going to need it) on your APE. I know you'll ace it. I miss you too, but I'll see you later <3.'
I accept the friend requests of Benjie's friends, log out of my page, and check my e-mail. Then I leave the cafe and go down to the supermarket.
*
It's already dark when I get home. The street is quiet, and our house is too.
I go inside and find my aunt and Cherry in our living room. My cousin reads a message on her phone, while her mother—my aunt—stands up from the chair and hurries her way in front of me. I'm taken aback by her reaction. But I just stand here by the front door, immobile, and feeling guilty of something I'm yet to know what.
"Where have you been?" she asks, and her voice is a little too loud for a short distance between us.
She and my mother are so much alike with their expressions and the tones of their voices—proud and authoritarian—that when I was young, I thought they were sisters instead of her being my father's.
"I went to the mall," I respond and nervously lift the bag of groceries. "E-er-rands."
She sighs, turns around, and goes back to the chair. "We don't know how to reach you." Her voice is still loud.
Gee, wonder why that is, I say to myself. Then I quietly and slowly make my way down to the kitchen.
Cherry stops texting and follows me. And I arrange the groceries on the dining table, while she watches my every move.
Something is wrong, I can sense it.
My parents aren't here. My brother isn't as well. The car's not in the garage too.
"Where's everyone?" I ask my cousin as I fold the plastic bag into squares.
"They're in the hospital." And she says it as if it's the most obvious thing that I should know right now.
"Why? Who? What happened?"
She sits down on the chair across from me. "It's your father," she whispers. "He collapsed earlier. Kelvin drove them to the city."
I sit down as well.
"Is...is he okay? What happened?"
She shakes her head. "We don't know the details, yet," she says. "Your mother will call as soon as there's an update."
"How did it happen? Where? Should I go to the hospital as well?"
"Your mother's instruction is that you should stay, and that's why we're here."
She avoids my other questions, but I only have to connect the dots to figure it out.
Before I left this afternoon, my father was talking to one of his friends. I heard something about celebrating something, and I also heard my brother's name. When I pass by the veranda a while ago, I saw the half-consumed bottle of hard liquor in a corner.
I look around the kitchen and to my back at the sink. There are two washed drinking glasses resting on its side. My father was unmistakably intoxicated earlier before he collapsed.
But, why don't I feel even the slightest surprise? Not even sympathy? Not even remorse for being apathetic? It's like I've known this is going to happen. And now that it does, instead of feeling bad about it, I kind of feel a bit relieved.
My aunt's phone rings. And we hear her talking to my mother, I assume, for she tells the person on the other end that I'm already home.
Cherry is looking deliberately at her mother, and I understand her worry. She grew up without a father, so mine and our uncle are the closest she has for one.
"It's his heart," my aunt tells us after she hangs up. "He had a heart attack earlier."
Cherry gasps, my aunt sighs, and I just stare at them.
"It's not something major, thank God," my aunt adds. "He's fine."
And Cherry lets out a sigh of relief.
"Is there...something that...I can do for now?" I ask.
"They're taking care of it, Kim," my aunt says. "But things are going to change, that's for sure."
There's something about the way she talks to me. And it doesn't feel good.
Why does it sound like she's blaming me? And why does it feel like this is my entire fault?
***
My mother and brother alternate on hospital duty, and I'm left in the house with either my grandmother or my aunt.
For the next couple of days, I could see and feel the toil getting harder on my mother. She's not only grumpy, but she's also driving me crazy.
I tried to make myself useful, but that involved asking her around for stuff because she never let me do household chores before. Instead of being nice and all since I wanted to help, she scolded me and told me not to bother since she got it. So be it. Then hours later, when somebody else was here, she shouted to the top of her lungs how useless I am around here.
But that's just the stress, I thought.
And so, I tried again. I initiated doing some stuff. But was she happy about that? No. She told me that there's no need for it. And then an hour or a little more after, when I was comfortably seated on the couch since she pushed me away from the kitchen and everywhere else, she yelled those harsh words back.
"You're so useless," she said. "Can't you be more sensitive?"
Maybe she just wanted to get rid of me. That's why I'm here now, in my room, under my blanket despite the heat of this summer. I'm letting myself get swallowed by the darkness once again.
This must be how people end up in straitjackets. And if things around here go on like this, I wouldn't be surprised if one day, I'd end up in one too.
***
It's the first week of May. And today is Thursday.
My father got back from the hospital yesterday afternoon.
I'm still trying as much to avoid my mother around the house, to at least preserve a bit of what's left of my sanity. I'm exaggerating, of course. I just don't want to deal with her when she's like that.
I'm looking for a pair of scissors to cut a loose thread on my shirt. And just like most things around here, it's often misplaced. I search through the kitchen, then at the bookshelf, but I can't find it there. I begin opening the drawers of the table by the living room window, and there it is. But I also notice something inside.
There's the unsent envelope with what should have been my reply letter and enrollment forms to NSU.
I quickly grab it and the scissors. Then I run toward the laundry area where my mother is hanging the clothes she just finished washing.
"You did not mail this?" I ask, holding the envelope with my left hand and level to my neck; my right has its grip on the scissors.
My mother stares at me and the thing on my hand for a few seconds, and then she goes back to hanging dripping wet clothes.
"You're not supposed to see that," she says in her cold and distant voice.
"W-why? This was due...weeks ago."
She's intentionally avoiding eye contact. And she's going along with what she's doing as if I'm not standing next to her, internally and externally falling apart.
I wave the envelope to catch her attention. "What does this mean?" I ask.
My mother stops and steps closer to me. I can smell the detergent all over her, and I almost sneeze.
"It means you're not going to NSU," she straightforwardly and quietly says. "It means you're staying here."
I drop my hand and hold my head back a little. "What...are y-you talking a-about?"
"With the situation right now," my mother says with a sigh, "it's just not financially possible for us."
I feel my left eye twitching and my lips trembling. My grip on the scissors is also tightening.
"Your grandfather agreed to help you," she continues. "But he wants you to stay here. So, it's settled. Just go talk to them about it."
"Didn't you even consider including me in that conversation?"
My mother stares at me with those round piercing hawkish eyes. "Just be grateful that they're willing to send you to college, Kim," she tells me in her sharpest voice.
She turns back to the bucket of clothes, reaches for a clothespin, and hangs a shirt on the wire. Then I spin around and walk back to the kitchen.
The NSU letter was set to be mailed weeks ago, and my father got hospitalized just days ago. My mother was there most of the time for the last couple of days, and my grandparents were here. I know that for sure. So, there's no way they could have settled this thing during those days alone. Which could only mean...
I go back and push open the screen door.
"You were never going to let me go away to college from the start, were you?"
My mother stands there, frozen, with her back to me. She doesn't answer.
"Why didn't you say so? Why did you let me take the entrance exam in the first place?"
I see her shoulders go up and down. But instead of facing me, she gets another piece from the bucket and pins it on the wire. "We never thought you'd also have it in you," she says.
I let go of the screen door, and it bangs on the doorframe. I crumple the envelope and what's inside it until I can see the colors on my knuckles changing. Then I hurriedly walk across the house, out to the veranda, and stop in front of the trash can at the garage.
With the scissors that I still have in my hand, I cut the envelope in half. I pull out the papers from inside and cut them into uneven and smaller pieces. And I watch as each of them falls down into the garbage bin.
My parents don't believe me. They also don't believe in me. Now I know that they don't want me to be happy. Or maybe it's me, I'm not made to be happy. Maybe I don't deserve to be happy. Or maybe my life is tangential, and that's them drawing the curve that I just have to follow. I don't get to decide because they do. Or maybe I'm not living my life, but a shadow of theirs. So, maybe there's no such thing as me. I'll just stop being me, then. Just cease to be.
I guess this is what writers mean when they say that the world is crumbling down, and they're breaking into tiny million pieces. But what is there to break when you weren't even whole, to begin with? And there can't be pieces of you because you were never here in the first place.