To Catch a Gust of Wind [COMPLETE]

Chapter 6 - Full Circle [#25]

Rafael went home with a heavy heart. He walked absentmindedly the long road that led to their house – his parents' house – in the hacienda center. This road that just this morning he stood upon and witnessed a magnificent dawn that he had last seen before he departed for Manila so many years ago. It was on this road that just this morning he and Thea Marie talked to each other as sweet friends. He had been her lover first and supposed to be friend later.

Now they were enemies. Love had been conquered by hatred and jealousy. What else would you expect, man? She called you a liar and a selfish person. You have lost her trust, the most important thing between lovers. What is love if trust is absent? You're a hypocrite if you pretend to express feelings for her, proclaiming your love to high heavens when inside you are secrets of infidelity and illicit love affairs, either to satisfy your ego or get what you want. Wake up, man. You can't live a decent life without telling her the truth. It's not because you decided not to do it again, you have your life back. You need to confess before starting anew. With a clean slate. That's the right thing to do right now.

The kapok trees that lined both sides of the road knew of the promises Thea Marie and Rafael made to each other. The kapok trees held secrets to his and Thea Marie's first feelings of love for each other on the night they first walked this road as sweethearts. How many times did they whisper sweet nothings along this road during the times he accompanied Thea Marie to her house? How they would talk about things in search for a bright future for the both of them.

A thousand and one things filled Rafael's mind that he didn't know he's home. He found Tay Paeng, his father, sitting on a bamboo bench. In front of him was a small wooden table. On top was a gallon of his favorite afternoon drink, tuba, or coconut wine. Without as much as a word of greeting to his father, he grabbed the glass of tuba on the table and downed it all at once. He put back the empty glass on the table with such a thud that the plastic gallon half full of tuba almost fell to the bamboo floor. With a reflex borne out in the cane fields, Tay Paeng quickly grabbed it and prevented tuba from spilling.

Rafael hated the coconut wine's raw taste, it's like diluted vinegar. He held his breath until the drink washed down the saliva which became dry in his throat and he felt throwing up. Yes, man. You're too quick when it comes to emotion or matters of the heart. You don't think long enough to balance the consequences.

"What happened, son? Just came home from Silay? Where's Thea Marie? Why is she not with you?" Tay Paeng asked a series of questions. Rafael slumped into a wooden chair beside the small table, his left hand grabbing the bamboo railing of the balcony.

"No, she's not with me," Rafael replied, catching his breath. "We broke up. It's all over between us."

Tay Paeng didn't say a word for a moment. Instead, he poured tuba into the empty glass and chugged it quickly. Looking at his father, Rafael sometimes thought if tuba could be transformed back into the coconut fruit, his father would be a tall coconut tree by now.

"You know, Rafael, maybe it's all God's plan. Accept it and you'll come out okay. Everything is pre-ordained by God. Don't fight it," Tay Paeng began. "When I was your age, I had several girlfriends. I didn't stop until I found your mother."

"You lived in a different time," Rafael replied, sitting restlessly on the chair. "You don't need to tell me that." Rafael knew if he let his father have his way, their conversation would lead to one of similar countless conversations they had had about life, ambition, money, and even love.

"Listen, son," Rafael's father said. "You go back to Manila and forget her. She's not the woman for you. You have a great future ahead. Leave the hacienda. You have achieved something now. Don't destroy it because of a woman. Use your head now. Your heart will understand. If I were you, I'll leave today back to Manila."

"You don't tell me what to do, Papa. Stop telling me, you do this, you do that. I can think and stand on my own, especially in my love life. What I do, I do because I decided to do it, not because you told me to." Rafael's face flushed red, the spirit of tuba kicked in his brain, releasing molecules that 'spiked' his anger.

"I'm giving you advice. It is for your own good---," Tay Paeng replied.

"Then stop! Stop your sermon! You've been giving me unsolicited advice ever since the day I was born. I don't want it anymore! You're pushing me to do something which you failed to do when you were young. You want to see yourself in me, where you failed you would like me to succeed!" Rafael shouted in front of his father.

"Is it bad? It's my responsibility, I did it because I'm your father!" Tay Paeng shouted back.

"I didn't ask to be born!" Rafael answered back, getting up from the chair.

"Tell that to your mother! She would be happy to hear it from you!" Tay Paeng pounded the table so hard. The uncapped plastic bottle of tuba fell to the floor, spilling its contents. Tay Paeng held his breath. He picked up the bottle. He looked at it. There's still tuba left inside enough for one more drink.

Tay Paeng was flabbergasted. He didn't expect this to come from Rafael, his eldest son. He felt he had been a good father to Rafael and his other children, the six of them. He raised them all by the sweat of his brow, here in the hacienda. It's honest living. He was proud of it. And he had accepted their fate, that he and his wife, Rafael's mother, will stay here in the hacienda until the day they die. But he cannot bear to accept the same fate for his children. Your eldest son is a man now. Let him be free from your care. He could stand on his own. You trained him so hard, it's time to let him go and seek his destiny.

Tay Paeng poured another drink. He let the last drop of tuba fall into the glass. He picked up the glass and downed it in one gulp. He wiped the side of his mouth with the back of his right hand.

Nay Maring, Tay Paeng's wife and Rafael's mother, was standing at the wooden door. She's been standing there obviously long enough to hear the last part of heated exchange between father and eldest son.

Rafael looked at his mother. Nay Maring glared at him, coldly, silently, her eyes wide open, boring into Rafael deeply, no words needed to be spoken to express what she felt at Rafael's burst of emotion, like a mother would when she feels insulted by no less than her eldest child. Rafael averted his mother's eyes and bowed, a sign of being sorry. Then he remembered.

It's time to take a bathfor the party...