Buy books here. Donate through Paypal or here. 🧡🌸
#MahalagaBooks #Children
Alona’s Quest for the Golden Tree
Chapter 13: The Aftermath
I WOKE up to the feeling of a warm and soft kiss on my forehead.
“Nay?” I asked groggily.
It was still dawn, I could tell. It was drafty. The rain had stopped.
“Shhh,” whispered the soft and warm voice. “Go back to sleep.”
I breathed comfortably, and snuggled tighter on my blanket.
Hours later, I opened my eyes to the glorious smell of corned beef and fried eggs.
My face split into a wide smile.
I got up and attacked the food laid on the table.
“Nay, ‘hat ‘time ‘id ‘you ‘ome in?” I asked, face bulging with too much food.
Nanay was on the table, sipping a cup of coffee. Presently, she got up, took a cup, and prepared a glass of milk. I assumed that was for me. Kuya Maliksi and Kuya Habagat were already helping themselves to two helpings of breakfast, mugs of steaming coffee clutched in both their hands.
“Around 4 o’clock this morning,” answered Nanay, putting the glass of milk in front of me. I drank it contentedly. “Came aboard the first baroto that sailed out.”
“What happened, Nay? We were waiting for you all night.”
There was an inexpertly disguised resentment in Kuya Habagat’s voice.
“I tried to come home early,” said Nanay, “but the storm was brewing and the waves were huge. I pleaded with the bangkeros to take me across, but he wouldn’t sail. Told me it was madness to try and go. I told him I had three children waiting for me. He adamantly refused. He said it was better to get back a little late, but safe, than never at all.”
An appeal for understanding was evident in Nanay’s voice.
“You should never have gone!” hurled Kuya Habagat. “You should never have left us!”
Seriously, I wanted to ask, it was just a day.
Kuya Habagat was in no mood to listen. He was too busy being angry.
“I have to,” insisted Nanay. “I’m looking for work. We need that.”
Kuya Habagat couldn’t find a reply to that. Determined to hate however, he was sulky.
For a while, nobody spoke.
Kuya Maliksi and I ignored them. We had good food in front of us, which was a rare treat. Why ruin it with unnecessary negativities?
“I’m going to take a bath,” Kuya Maliksi announced, rather inconsequentially.
I swallowed my food hastily.
“Me first,” I protested. “You take a bath like a lady. I can’t afford to wait. You’ll make me late for school.”
“What are you talking about?” retorted Kuya Maliksi. “I take a bath fast. It’s you who take years in there.”
I faced Nanay.
“Nay, can I go first?”
“Let your sister go first,” commanded Nanay.
That settled the matter.
Kuya Maliksi muttered mutinously, but he conceded. I stuck my tongue out at him and jumped out of my chair.
There were soap and shampoo inside our makeshift bathroom.
I whistled appreciatively.
We didn’t always have soap and shampoo because they were quite expensive. Instead, Nanay used gugo for our hair and raw-and-recently-hewed soap nut branch as soap. You didn’t know how weird that felt.
That branch was curiously effective enough in siphoning off dirts. Nay had planted the tree in the middle of our garden. However, a lot of our neighbors helped themselves to the branches without asking permissions first. It immediately stripped the poor tree of its useful branches. Nay, too angry, hacked the tree into pieces. From then on, we had to use detergents whenever our bath time coincided with the lack of bathing soaps.
The bath was extremely comfortable.
AS FAR AS I was concerned, it didn’t take me days to bathe. However, an entirely different scene greeted me when I came out.
Nanay and Kuya Habagat was standing nose to nose. Nay was glaring. Kuya Habagat, in defiance, was glaring back.
Kuya Habagat, most of the time, was the silent type. When he was angry though, his rage would explode like a hurricane.
“Don’t you dare raise your voice on me!” Nay admonished.
“I will, if I want to,” said Kuya Habagat, without respect.
I frowned. What’s wrong with these two?
“You don’t understand!” snapped Nanay. “How could you hope to understand? You’re too young.”
“No, I’m not,” spat Kuya Habagat. “And I don’t want to understand!”
“I had to work, to support you and your sister. I will be back Saturdays and Sundays. I had to do this, anak. This is for your own sake.”
“Bah. That’s what Tatay used to say, too,” snorted Kuya Habagat, rounding on her. “You’re abandoning us! That’s what you’re doing! You’re abandoning us just like how Tatay abandoned us!”
“That’s not true!” shrieked Nanay, horrified. “I’m not going to abandon you! Your father did not abandon us! He didn’t.”
She shook her head vehemently.
“He did!” spat Kuya Habagat, full of bitterness. “Explain then, why he was not here? Why are we so poor? Why do we need to work? Why do you need to work? Aren’t fathers supposed to take care of their families?”
He shouted the last words hysterically, stomping through the floor.
Even I was afraid of what Nanay would say. I wanted her to go berserk, saying with utmost conviction that Kuya Habagat was wrong, that Tatay did not, in fact, abandoned us. But Nanay only shook her head, over and over again.
“Enough,” she said, but so soft that Kuya Habagat could have pretended not to have heard it.
Kuya Habagat marched out of the house, banging the door behind him.
Nanay did not even try to follow him. She kept on shaking her head, like a demented human being.
I closed my eyes.
I wished I knew what to say, what to do. But I didn’t. I stood there, like a frozen mannequin. I refused to look at Nanay. I refused to look at Kuya Maliksi, whose eyes blazed like mine.
I hate being poor. If I wasn’t, Nanay need not work.
(c) 2016, Herbel Santiago