Sophia, after the long wait, stood up as she repeated to herself, Giovanni’s name. She wanted to stay longer, but the pain would only lose, if she left, while it was still early.
They were about to leave when a black Audi arrived.
Alex recognized it. “Gio’s family is also here to visit,” he mumbled, gazing at the slow-moving car.
The Habendards saw them too and went to them immediately. They were all wearing black.
“Mr. and Mrs. Vabueretti, hi!” Giovanni’s father greeted them cordially.
“Oh, hello there!” the Vabueretti couple greeted back. “We’re here to visit Giovanni’s grave.”
“I see,” Giovanni’s father reacted in delight, looking at Sophia with a splodge of pity.
“We’re glad you’re here!” Giovanni’s mother supplemented, also taking a peek at Sophia, who now appeared iced-up, in awkward timidity.
For a while, Alex and Sophia stood with them, wordless as they listened to their parents’ conversation with the Habendards. Then, a cute little girl emerged from the car, captivating Sophia’s attention. She was Anna, Giovanni’s younger sister.
Watching her, Sophia did not need to ask if she was Giovanni’s younger sister. Her face already spoke for it.
Anna looked at her too, and passed the same message of grief through her beatific eyes.
Sophia remained staring at her, craving to talk to her, but Giovanni’s mom approached Sophia, and blocked her curious look at Anna.
Sophia stiffened as Mrs. Habendard offered her a warm embrace. For a moment or two, they carved up the same longing for Giovanni.
“I pray for your memory to come back,” Mrs. Habendard whispered in her ears, as her clasp tightened.
Standing still, Sophia was not able to return a response. Mrs. Habendard’s cuddle was intense enough so that it seemed to paralyze every muscle of her mouth.
Coming to Sophia’s rescue, Elizabeth thanked Mrs. Habendard and repeated that they were glad to see them again.
“Yes, we share the same thing.” Mrs. Habendard finally released Sophia and stepped back to continue her talk with the Vabueretti couple.
“We should be leaving now,” Philippe incorporated carefully, noticing the sky turning hotter. “And we’re very glad to see you.” Now, Philippe handled all the talking, as Sophia and Alex started getting inside the car.
As their car moved, Sophia glanced back at the Habendards, and once more, offered her silent goodbye to Giovanni.
It was lunch time when Philippe saw a Southeast-Asian-looking restaurant. “Hungry?” he asked.
“Yes. Please pull over,” Elizabeth responded.
Then, they got inside the diner, noticing its ethnic designs and strange music.
It was all unusual. The people were eating with their bare hands and no one seemed to feel uncomfortable.
“It’s the way they eat here. They don’t use any utensils,” Alex told Sophia under his voice. “It’s the attraction of the restaurant, as well as the indigenous kind of music.”
Sophia continued, observing. She was distracted when a Filipino waitress recognized her.
“Oh, Ma’am Sophie! You’re here! It’s been months since you last visited our restaurant.” The waitress spoke in a perfect English accent as she led them to a special table.
To her utter surprise, Sophia lost her words.
The waitress’ face increasingly crumpled. Typically, Sophia would smile at her. But this time, she seemed different.
“She doesn’t remember you. She lost her memory in a car accident,” Elizabeth spoke for her daughter, and sat down on a varnished wooden chair.
The waitress, shocked, couldn’t make a move. It was ages before she recovered. “I see, ma’am. May I take your order, then?” she finally said.
Sophia looked at her in the eyes and asked, “What did I use to order here?”
“Oh, you and Sir Giovanni always ordered “adobo” and rice, topped with chopped leaves of pandan,” the waitress gleefully detailed, unaware of Giovanni’s passing away.
Philippe, Elizabeth, and Alex passed a message through their eyes, and quickly turned close-mouthed.
Sophia came to a thorny hush. Knowing that she used to go there with Giovanni, she had enough of emotional torture.
More and more confused, the waitress asked them again about their order.
“Okay, give us then that “adobo” and rice,” Philippe demanded without more ado, in hopes of cutting the creeping awkwardness.
“And your drinks, sir?” the waitress, again, inquired.
Sophia noticed the coconut shells displayed at the restaurant reception area and gawked at them steadily.
The waitress shadowed Sophia’s distant look at them and asked if they wanted coconut water.
“Yes, coconut water for the four of us!” Philippe, again, rushed to answer.
The waitress finally left them, but a designed wall seized Sophia’s awareness. The wall was a message board for the restaurant’s avid costumers. There were displayed photos and love notes, mostly by teenagers of the wealthy kind.
With its magnetic pull on Sophia, Sophia approached it and saw a photo of her and Giovanni. Beside it was Giovanni’s love note during their first week together. It said,
I suppose I am the happiest guy already.
The girl beside me on the photo is my girlfriend,
my beautiful, endearing girlfriend. I feel so lucky
blessed that she chose me over the other guys out
there, chasing her like she’s on extinction.
This feeling I can’t explain. Perhaps this is what
people call ecstasy. She smiles as I write this.
It’s her lips that I thirst to kiss. She has these eyes
that weaken me. It bothers me that guys stare at her
tonight and if she’s a candle, she could have melted
already. But it makes me proud that she’s all mine.
I love her and I always will.
Sophia’s chest grew heavier, realizing how this Giovanni loved her so much. At once, she stopped herself from getting more emotional and wished for a tower of strength, just a snatch away, to prevent her legs from collapsing.
Elizabeth followed her daughter and saw the photo.
“The food’s ready.” Carefully, she stopped Sophia’s track of thoughts about Giovanni.
Sophia slowly glared at the floor, and turned to face her mother, wordless.
Tangled up with the oodles of emotions surrounding them, Elizabeth held her daughter’s hand and led her back to the table. “Let’s eat now.”
“Um, this is good!” Alex expressed while eating. “The taste is weird but it’s really good,” he kept on, with his mouth chock-full.
“Yes, I have to agree,” Philippe coincided, savoring every bite of “adobo.”
Chewing, with no energy, Sophia noticed someone from the reception area. He was watching her from time to time, making her lose interest in her eating.
“Sophia, what is wrong?” Elizabeth asked and followed her daughter’s distracted eyes.
Curious, Alex did the same and saw Enzo, one of Sophia’s keen suitors before, who was also the son of the restaurant’s owner.
“Oh, Enzo!” he screeched in discomfort.
“You know him?” Sophia’s forehead wrinkled.
“A little, sis. I wonder if he’s working here.”
“What do you know about him?”
“That he’s a jerk!” Alex gnashed his teeth, his angry eyes entirely targeting Enzo.
“You think I knew him?” Sophia stiffened, and examined Enzo sneakily.
Within their parents’ presence, Alex chose not to provide her any answer. He was simply careful not to let slip any mischief he did before, involving Enzo.
“What is it, Alex?” Elizabeth butted in.
Philippe did the same, his face displaying inklings of Alex’s naughtiness.
Alex sighed, deciding in his mind. But in the long run, he finally
spilled all the beans.
“Sophia, that guy...” he spoke initially, discerning his father’s irritated impression. “Um, he used to stalk you before,” he finally admitted, already prepared for their parents’ shock.
“What?” Philippe turned shaken.
“And because of that… Giovanni and I used to punch him in the face.” Now, Alex conceitedly announced it.
“What?” Philippe and Elizabeth reacted simultaneously, their eyes continuously dilating.
“How come we never knew this, before?” Elizabeth freaked out modestly.
“Well...” Alex self-righteously shrugged his shoulders.
“Come on, honey! Let’s eat fast so we could go. I’m glad I’m getting to know more of your brother’s bad behavior,” Elizabeth told Sophia, with a penetrating glance at Alex.
Sophia nodded, pondering everything she heard from them.
At the Vabueretti residence, Jericho was stealthily observing outside the house. He was in his car, away from the gate, waiting for Sophia to come out, but for hours, he did not see any of her silhouette.
Still patiently waiting, Jericho finally saw a car coming and thought that it might already be the Vabuerettis. He hid himself in the car and carefully looked out from its window.
Their gate was opened by Grandma Lucy.
The moment Jericho saw her, his nervous system immediately plunged down. Determined enough, he endured it all, so as to study the place again.
At last, Sophia appeared in his sense of sight, as she gracefully glided out of the car.
Euphoric, he smiled and then left.
Chapter 18
The Artist in Her
There were still a few weeks before summer ended.
One late morning, since Zarah was still on vacation in Europe with her parents, Elizabeth decided to convince Sophia to attend an art class. She wanted to wash her daughter’s sadness away by reviving her passion, which was to sketch. She knew that it was the Tenth of May, the day of her daughter’s painting competition at the National Art Institute, but she chose to zip her mouth about it, considering Sophia’s amnesia.
“You love to sketch, honey! Every summer, you attend Ms. Bun’s art class.” Elizabeth talked to Sophia as she joined her on the dining table.
Landing a steaming cup of rosemary tea on the table, Sophia bent her head down and dampened her lower lip. She was not sure about how she was going to respond to her mother’s offer.
“You have lots of sketch pads, hon.” Elizabeth leaned forward and volunteered to squeeze a slice of lemon on her daughter’s cup. “You’re an exceptional artist,” she added, pinning on a wide smile.
Sophia contemplated her mother’s offer again. With a profound look at her hands, she wondered if they could still sketch, exactly like they used to. Though she hadn’t seen, yet, a sample of her own work ever since the accident, she heard that they were great.
Elizabeth’s eyes lingered and were drawn to Sophia, and she thought of something that could, somehow, let some light into her daughter’s blank mind.
“Wait here and I’ll get your sketch pads for you to see,” Elizabeth set forth, giving Sophia a pat on the back.
“Yes, Mom. I’ll wait here…” Sophia nodded and granted her mother a plain smile.
Elizabeth went upstairs and looked for them.
Rounding at her daughter’s bed, she knew that she just put them somewhere in Sophia’s bedroom. She kept searching and at last, she found one beneath Sophia’s study desk piled along with art magazines and school books. It was Sophia’s latest sketch pad. She went back, downstairs, and handed it to Sophia.
“I don’t remember where I put the others but this is what I found,” explained Elizabeth, as she approached her daughter from behind, and volunteered to open it for her.
As the pages were turned one by one, Sophia was amazed by her own artwork. “Did I sketch all of these?” she asked, lifting her chin, looking at her mom through the corners of her eyes.
“Yes, honey.” Elizabeth’s voice sounded proud.
Page after page, the sketch of what she saw at the lake house that night seized Sophia’s eyes. The gigantic pair of white wings was, in particular, outstandingly sketched!
“It’s beautiful, Sophia! What made you sketch that?” Elizabeth applauded her.
Out of the blue, Sophia remembered what she read from her diary a few days ago. It was described the way it was sketched.
“Your imagination is brilliant, honey! What made you draw such a pair of huge wings, surrounded by a flock of smaller birds?” Elizabeth, still at Sophia’s back, ensued. “Um... let me interpret that.” She brought out a challenge to herself and placed her right index finger over her lower lip, thinking hard.
“Mom, when will we visit Forest Green again?” Sophia, all of a sudden, changed the course of their conversation.
“Forest Green? We just went there about four months ago.”
Gradually, Sophia nodded and confessed, “I feel like I need to go back there.”
“And what would you do there?” Elizabeth’s surprise persisted, as she punctured her eyes into Sophia’s sketch, mulling over it, as if it reminded her of something.
“I don’t know, Mom. It’s just that... a part of me is telling me to get back there.”
“Oh, by the way, how did you know of Forest Green?” Elizabeth quickly asked, surprised about how Sophia learned of Forest Green, despite her amnesia.
“Um, through my diaries, Mom…”
Knowing that Sophia grew up there and hopefully, some things would miraculously flash back into her memory, Elizabeth was fairly persuaded.
But Grandma Lucy spied their conversation.
Sensing Elizabeth’s plan to visit Forest Green, Grandma Lucy demanded for a private talk with her daughter-in-law.
Elizabeth agreed and temporarily left Sophia.
They headed to Philippe’s office room, the one that was adjacent to the living room.
While closing the door, Grandma Lucy made sure they did not appear suspicious to Sophia.
“I think it’s time for you to know about Jericho.” Grandma Lucy began to reveal some secrets, her eyes concentrated on the rays of the sun passing between the small spaces of the curtains.
“I heard of that name when we were in Forest Green. What about that guy, Mom?” Elizabeth asked as she stood, five feet away from Grandma Lucy.
Looking down, Grandma Lucy took a hard time to select her words. In an upset intonation, she spoke again. “Jericho is the son of an insane woman in Forest Green. They are poor… and pathetic! I don’t want that kind of guy for my granddaughter!”
Rendered speechless, Elizabeth felt like she was thrown from East to West and vice versa.
“Mom, you mean to say... my daughter had a relationship with that guy?” Elizabeth survived to ask in pins and needles. “But she’d just turned thirteen when we took her!”
“That was what I was asking myself, before. She was too young, Elizabeth!” The frown in Grandma Lucy’s face deepened.
“Mom, maybe he’s just a friend. Maybe you’re overreacting!” Elizabeth attempted to stretch it out.
“You think I was stupid enough to see what he was doing to her?”
“What, Mom?”
Instantly, Grandma Lucy fell mute. Letting her breath come out slowly, she folded her arms on her chest and carried on. “I was awake that night when I heard someone climb Sophia’s room. Her door was open when...” Grandma Lucy’s voice suddenly trembled.
On the edge, Elizabeth stepped closer towards her and waited for her mother-in-law to finish her sentence.
Grandma Lucy found courage to speak again. “Her door was open when...”
“When?”
“Her door was open when I saw him kissing Sophia!”
Elizabeth, at once, weakened. “Oh, dear God....”
“She was twelve so I decided to call you right away... to take her away.” The moment she said it, Grandma Lucy faced Elizabeth, looking deadl
y.
Elizabeth felt rooted to where she was standing, and allowed herself be stabbed by every knife coming from Grandma Lucy’s eyes and words. She was speechless, shaking, disbelieving every word she heard from her mother-in-law.
“I’m her grandma and I want the best for her! You think it was fine with me to see my young and innocent granddaughter being kissed by a tramp?” Grandma Lucy stressed and paced towards the windows to avoid Elizabeth’s shocked and perplexed eyes.
With those sharp words, Elizabeth could almost collapse and sink to the floor. She wished for a pole of strength, just a grab away, for her knees were about to betray her.
“If I did not call you that day, to take her... her life would have been so different, Elizabeth!” Grandma Lucy advanced. “That is the reason why, as much as possible, I don’t want her back in Forest Green. It will only bring everything back!”
About to explode, Elizabeth remained silent. Soon, she survived enough to say something, “What if it’s over now...?”
Grandma Lucy brusquely laughed and faced Elizabeth once more. “When you visited Forest Green four months ago, they saw each other.” Grandma Lucy lifted her lips sideways with swaying of head. “Oh, Eliz, trust me. I’ve been told. And I’m very sure the lust is still there. She’s just like Francheska.” All of a sudden, Grandma Lucy realized, too late, that it was a slip of the tongue.
“Mom, please! Don’t dredge up the family history!” Elizabeth pleaded. “Please, don’t involve my sister, Fracheska, here!”
Grandma Lucy’s eyebrows raised. “All right! But from whom would Sophia inherit such—”
“Mom! Please!” Elizabeth pleaded harder, cutting Grandma Lucy’s sentence before she could unearth the unwanted family secrets, of Sophia’s true identity.
Grandma Lucy appeared disillusioned. “Remember, I lost my son, Benjamin, because of Francheska! And I don’t know if he is still alive or—” Grandma Lucy cried, all of a sudden.
Silence conquered Elizabeth. She could not bear the rushing torrent of the past. The times when Francheska threatened to abort Sophia. The times when her parents, Randy and Emily, were filing a case against Benjamin, Philippe’s younger brother, for sexually assaulting Francheska. And Elizabeth didn’t know if her sister was alive afterwards (because she ran away after giving birth). I also lost a sister because of your son, Elizabeth wanted to scream at Grandma Lucy.
Lost in the Wilderness - The Forest of Evergreen Book 1 Page 13