Don't Tell My Mother

by Brigitte Bautista

  Her eyes cloud with hatred. She covers her mouth with a hand, but I could just make out the corners turning into a scowl. I know what she’s thinking. Or, rather, who she’s thinking of. Only one person could drive her in a crazy rage like this. “It’s that woman, Clara, isn’t it? I thought I had prayed her away like I did with Christina. But, I didn’t realize how weak your mind was. It didn’t occur to me how strong her poison was. She’s there in your mind, isn’t she? Polluting your thoughts with fantasies, making your heart weak with these immoral affections.”

  I hold on to a pillow and gather all the restraint not to throw it at Mama. I raise my voice, hoping that she would hear me this time. “This is not a sickness, Mama! How many times do I have to tell you that? You don’t listen. I am not suffering from an affliction. I don’t need healing!”

  Not even the loudest of noises could fall on ears pretending to be deaf. “I cannot watch you waste your life away, Samantha. You are going to counseling starting tomorrow. You are going to be healed of this. You are going to apologize to all that you have hurt, ask for absolution and accept the punishment they give you.”

  “I won’t go, Mama. You can’t make me!” I hide underneath the covers and face the wall, expecting Mama to carry this conversation another time. Mama rolls me over and strips the sheets off of me. Her weight pins my hips in place. I avert my gaze, fearful of the disgust and loathing on her face. She holds me by the chin and forces me to look at her. I used to think she was the most beautiful woman, even in all her flaws. But, her faith has turned her ugly and hateful. What should have driven our family together is the same force tearing us apart.

  “Listen to me, Samantha. You are going to counseling, or so help me, I will force that sin out of your body.” The warning comes out in an angry hiss, a stinging slap not far behind. Dada comes to the rescue and carries her away from me, shouting “That’s enough. You’re hurting her!”

  Clara was right. Clara saw this place for what it is. An artificial paradise bogged down by the weight of its own traditions. It took me this long to realize how time has stopped in this place. People just grow old and die. Their offspring will take their places, reared and taught like their parents before them. There is no breaking the cycle. There is no catching up with the times. It doesn’t matter how hard I fight or how long I wait. Mama will never come around.

  I plotted my escape right there and then. It’s 3AM, and I am walking the stairs for the last time. I don’t know where I’m going. What I only know is I can’t stay here. I packed as light as I could, two bags with the bare necessities. My flannel collection, four pairs of pants, one brown, one grey, one black, one dirty-white. The chess set. The laser gun. The Nokia.

  I read Clara’s birthday note again. I am reminded of why I’m doing this. It hurts to leave Dada and the comforts of this home. It hurts to think about the burden of freedom, if I could even get there. But, none of these compares to the pain of staying here and living a lie and turning into my mother.

  “So, you’re running away.” The words come from the pale darkness of the living room. The bag on my left hand falls with a thud. A rock settles at the pit of my stomach. I have been caught. I have been defeated. I guess I’m going to counseling and therapy after all.

  “Come sit. We have time. Mama won’t be up in at least two hours. You gave her such a hard time, my dear.”

  I sit beside Dada, trying my best to be still. My hands are trembling. My brain is vibrating inside my skull. I’m sweating so much I could bathe a tiny cat with all this excess water.

  “You know why I stayed?” Dada asks. He doesn’t have to say anything more. I know what he’s talking about.

  “Because that terrible man left you. He didn’t even show at the airport.”

  “My dear, I have never told anyone this. But, he did show. He kept calling me that day. He waited for me until midnight. It was me who did the leaving. It was me who didn’t show at the airport.”

  “Why did you do that, Dada?”

  He takes my hand. A teardrop falls on my knuckle. He traces the lines on my palm, perhaps trying to divine what kind of future lays ahead of me. Maybe, just maybe, he sees his life coursing through me, the one he conducts in the guise of late-night workdays and emergency meetings.

  “Because you held on to my leg, and you looked at me with those sad, little eyes of yours. You didn’t say a word. Just held on as tight as your tiny hands could, like it was me you needed the most in the world. Right then and there, I knew I had to stay. And, every time I feel like I made a bad choice, I only have to look at you to see that I hadn’t.”

  He kisses my forehead. My own tears stain his shirt. He tucks my bangs behind my ear. He looks at me like he just realized I’m not the 6-year-old tugging at his pants anymore. “But, you, my dear, you have no reason to be here. You have no happiness to justify your misery on.”

  “Dada, what are you saying?”

  He stands up from the couch without offering an explanation. He clicks open the door, pulls back all the bolts, removes the chain. He fishes the car keys from the crystal bowl and places it in my hand. He passes me an ATM card.

  “0712. It doesn’t have much. It’s for my, you know…”

  “Emergency meetings?”

  For a second, he looks like a dog about to get hit by a pickup truck, not knowing whether to duck or make a run for it. But, then, he realizes that it’s 3AM and he doesn’t have to hide his secrets for another two hours. We share a laugh, short and quiet. When he holds me, I am filled with his courage and strength. He chose this life for me, because I was his happiness. He did that without asking for any return of investment. He never loaded his ambitions on my shoulders. He didn’t expect me to follow in his footsteps. Dada is making me choose for myself, not for their sake, not for honor or religion. He sniffs back tears, his lips quivering beneath the moustache. We settle our goodbyes in silence, careful not to wake Mama.

  “Leave, Sam. And, please, don’t ever come back.”

  Chapter 11

  IT MUST BE the mussels I ate the night before. I knew they were bad. But, nothing is ever too rotten with cheese and parsley on top. Right? My stomach begged to differ. I had been cramping up and goosebumping all over throughout Sunday service. This was a case of the poopies that I just couldn’t hold in and soldier through. “Mama, can I go home for a little bit? My tummy is aching.”

  “Okay. But, hurry, Sam! Or, better yet, just have Dada drop you off at Intsikan.”

  I ran back home and relieved myself in the bathroom downstairs. I meant to get medicine from Mama’s cabinet, when I suddenly stopped at the sound of muffled crying. The door to their bedroom was open. The bathroom was, too. Dada was hunched over the sink, sobbing like he just got punched in the gut. I worried that he had hurt himself.

  “Dada? Are you okay?”

  “Sam!” He wasn’t expecting me to be back soon. It was too late to mask the splotches of tears with a splash of cold water. He cleared his throat and restored the deep baritone in his voice. “Do you need something, my dear?”

  “I was just about to get some Loperamide. Dada? Are you hurt?” I asked again. He shook his head and forced a smile. He wrapped me in an embrace, a rare show of affection. I didn’t realize back then that he was hurting, but not from a physical pain or illness. It was a brand of loneliness not too different from how I had felt growing up. The loneliness of being surrounded by the people you love and still feel incomplete. Only on Sunday afternoons when Mama and I were busy elsewhere could he purge himself of this feeling. Only then could he grieve the life and love he had lost. Only then could he be honest with himself. Mama called, asking me if I was on my way. Dada drove me to Intsikan and said nothing more of the matter.

  It’s a Sunday afternoon and I’m still in bed. Not my bed. A bed of a friend. A friend I met just last night. A naked friend. I try to remember what her name is. Is it Elaine or Alaine? Let’s just kiss and forget about names. This is the drill that has come to define my w
eekends. Stretch arms and roll out of bed. Look for clothes. Ask yourself why your bra is in the bathroom. Hop into week-old jeans. Carry conversations of no more than ten syllables. Get out the door. Go home. Repeat.

  “Do you want to stay for breakfast?”

  “Breakfast? It’s 1PM.”

  “Stay a little.”

  “I have to go now. Thanks for last night.”

  “Call me?”

  “You bet.” I never do.

  Home now is a studio apartment that I share with three others in the grime and soot of university-belt Manila. On weekdays, I shuttle between work and school. Work is nothing glamorous, just a waitressing job in a fast food joint. It’s enough to pay for my public school tuition and a few beers at the end of the week. I don’t need much to survive, except for the upkeep of my clunky Toyota. I couldn’t part with it, no matter how much I needed the money. I don’t want to have to forget Dada ever existed.

  It’s been two years since I left the suburbs and never looked back. I don’t go home, not even for Christmas and Easter Sunday. It’s been two years of reveling in the discoveries I stumble upon about myself. I like my morning coffee with three-fourths milk, instead of black, pure and straight like Mama used to make. I have since divorced dresses and skirts and have fallen in love with red, the deep, wine-colored shades that reminded me of that summer. Flannel is still my favorite, though, because some things never change. Now that I am left to my own unstable devices, I eat spaghetti on a semi-regular basis. Semi-regular is at least five times a week. I’m pretty sure I will die of clogged arteries and my veins have mutated into mushed-up flour and cheese.

  “Sam got some again!”, Liza singsongs. My other two roommates, Ivy and Diane, sit up from their bunks and tear themselves away from their book stands just to chime in. “Sam, at this rate, there will never be a virgin left in Manila by the time you’re thirty.”

  I throw a pillow at her before crashing into my bunk. Liza doesn’t go to college, never dreamed of it. The only dream she held on to was true love. How does she know it’s true love? Why, it should come with the promise of a US visa and a green card, of course! She talks nonstop about Christopher, her online boyfriend. Correction, she always says, future fiancé.

  “How’s Christopher?” I ask. Liza answers with a barrage of exchanged selfies, love notes, cryptic status updates and, before anyone could stop her, excerpts of their Skype sessions. What sessions? Go figure.

  “Why don’t you find yourself a Christopher?”

  “You know I don’t swing that way, Liza.”

  “No, I don’t mean it like that, silly. Don’t you ever dream of someone who will love you for more than a night, more than a moment? Like Christopher?”

  “That doesn’t work for me.”

  Liza lets out an exasperated, I’m-done-trying-to-talk-some-sense-into-you kind of groan. “You sound just like my best friend Joanna. You know what, you two should hook up and be stubborn together. Have sex all day long for the fuck of it. I can’t understand you two!” She gives up and goes to the balcony for a smoke.

  Night falls and even Liza tires of talking about Christopher. It’s Monday tomorrow. I know I should rest, but I couldn’t buy myself any sleep. I am the only one awake, settling with the trains of thought running in a jumble in my head. Does Dada still wear that awful moustache and that Santa Claus-y laugh? Have they torn down the posters of Jesus on my bedroom wall? Is Mrs. Bautista dead or alive? Is Mama still president of the Stuck-up Moms? It’s one of those days when my heart aches for the familiarity and comforts of the suburbs. I take a shower. Maybe, a bit of cool would lift my spirits up a little bit. I dry myself in front of the mirror, waiting for my reflection to talk back to me. Usually, it’s a word of encouragement. You can do this. You’ve gone this far on your own. Don’t stop now. Tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow will be happier, I promise. Tonight, though, my reflection has had enough.

  What the fuck are you doing?

  What do you think I’m doing? I am living my life.

  This isn’t you.

  Don’t tell me what is and isn’t me. You sound like my mother.

  As you wish.

  Her voice comes to me from two years back. From that summer I held her hand in church and fell in love and lost all that I held dear. It would have been the fodder of romance to run away right then and there. Brave the mad world and find Clara. Just fucking run away into the sunset, why don’t you? I did run away, but not for her. I ran away for myself. I turned my back on the world I knew and found myself in the process. But, nights like this, I wonder if that means anything now. I wonder if these traits and habits would amount to something of substance someday. I found myself and loved myself and accepted myself. Well, look at me now, broke and starving and struggling at twenty-two.

  I reach for the chess set in the deepest part of my drawer. I brought it with me but have left it untouched until now. Deep in my subconscious, I still blame Clara for leaving me. It hurts to think that I hate her for choosing her own self-preservation, for being right about Mama, for living somewhere I can’t even find or reach her.

  I wipe the dust away with the hem of my shirt. The board opens with a short click. I cradle a white pawn between my fingers, and smile at the memory of first time we ever played. I won that one. She won the next. Things got messy, and we didn’t have the chance to settle the score. I arrange the crystal pieces on the floor, making a ceremony of spit-shining them before laying them down. I run my hand on the red felt lining, now scratched and rough and a little loose. I peel it off, deciding to just tack on a new one tomorrow and maybe start playing again. Maybe I could teach Liza. I shake my head and laugh. That wouldn’t work, not in a million years.

  A folded piece of paper falls out. Is this what resurrection feels like? Did Lazarus’s heart quicken like this – skip a beat and creep back to normal – when he rose from the dead? I scramble to the bathroom and check the note against the light. I have to make sure I’m not dreaming this. I kind of expected the piece of paper to be blank, the address fading letter by letter. This is just my mind conjuring these hallucinations to justify this midnight longing. It will pass, it will pass.

  But, the letters stay. Pier 16, Brgy. Ilijan, Lobo, Batangas. I don’t know if it’s sweat or tears that blot the ink. I read it again and again, until I am convinced that the letters aren’t going anywhere.

  But, I am.

  Chapter 12

  THE FIRST TIME I played the piano was at a recital in the school auditorium. From the stage, the audience was a mere collection of silhouettes. I could just make out Mama’s pearl earrings in the front row. She had her two thumbs up in encouragement. The spotlight was burning a hole in my forehead. The attention was making it hard to concentrate. The crowd was starting to amp up their murmur, a signal for me to start and get a move on.

  I was doing fine until my trembling hand slipped two keys to the left and missed the note. Nobody noticed the mistake, not even Teacher Ephraim. Teacher Ephraim, who slapped my hands with a ruler when I was the slightest bit sharp or flat. No one noticed except Mama, who was already hiding her face behind a bejeweled hand. I played the song without another hitch. The audience clapped. Relief came to me in waves as I retreated to the curtains of the side stage. I had to admit, I was a bit proud. Mama met me backstage. Her congratulations came, but not before a click of the tongue and a snide remark. “That note. I can’t believe you missed it. I thought you practiced after class.”

  I still knew Mama grew a liking to it. She had me play it every time we welcomed visitors into our home. They were usually new neighbors she was trying to get on good terms with. It became my show tune, my carrier single, so to speak. Every time I played, I could see her hold her breath and wait for that wretched note to pass. Only when I was in the clear did she allow herself to relax. That was how I came to know the song notes, chords, tempo and melody. I sang the lyrics but never listened, never even heard them. All I could think of was that note.

&n
bsp; Even when I heard it playing in Clara’s Mercedes, my obsession with form took over. My fingers drummed against my thighs, mapping the keys and chords to the perfect rendition. The words flew over my head. I have never grasped the song beyond the notes. I have never understood Brooke Fraser’s “Arithmetic,” even if I had the nerve to call it my all-time, super-mega-hyper favorite.

  Come find me when you are ready.

  It took me two years to be ready. I needed that much to find myself outside of the suburban bubble that had encased me for so long. Whether I liked it or not, the suburbs shaped me. They forced me into a square hole when I had been a round peg all along. They pushed, twisted, rammed until my curves were harsh and splintered, until I was wholly convinced that I was a square peg myself. I needed time to undo all that. Even then, the unhappiness clung to me and followed me from lover to lover, bed to bed. I thought the city was the solution to my problems. The city didn’t care if I loved men or women or none at all, if I was fat or thin, if I believed in Jesus or not. It didn’t ask about my past or worried itself sick if there was hell to pay in my future. The freedom to choose and be myself should have made me happier. All these women, I could pick and choose. But, I yearned for her.

  She had been three hours away all this time, right at the end of the Luzon mainland. Three hours, a sliver of a day, and yet it took me two years to end up here. A beach, how romantic, cue eye roll. There is nothing here that inspires romance. The sand is black and littered with seaweed. The jagged corals and shells punch through heavy-duty combat boots. There are no beach-front mansions, just a row of nipa huts a storm away from being one hundred percent nipa, zero percent hut. My back is breaking from the load on my shoulders. A backpack filled with all my flannel and black skinnies, two sets of plates, glass tumblers and spoon and fork. The real back-breaker, though, is the burden of uncertainty. The truth is, even if I said I was ready, even if I’ve made it this far, I am scared. Crumbling-inside-crippled-below-the-waist kind of scared. I am scared of what kind of life lies ahead. I fear that Mama’s fears were spot on. I will have it hard from here on out. The only way for me to be saved is if I turn away and repent. I am a sinner and every people I meet will see through that and avoid me like the Seven Plagues. Also, what if they have really bad water here and I came all the way just to die from diarrhea? Don’t laugh. It is a legitimate probability.