When Love Did Come

CHAPTER TEN

A week later Jenny wanted to be gone. She had surges of guilt for Manny. So had Rayel. Jenny cried once, thinking of it. "How can I be so insensitive and yet not care I'm being insensitive? I love you so much, Rayel, nothing matters, not guilt or anything like that."

Something in her marriage had gone wrong. It had been there for a long while, and the vacation in Italy had highlighted it. Rayel asked if that was merely an excuse to continue on with their marriage.

She shook her head. "I keep thinking of the word inertia. Sometimes, I think people stay together because of inertia and not much else. I have the feeling Manny and I are riding a tired horse, but we just keep going on because we don't know what else to do. Manny wants to be a university administrator, or a dean or something, and I can't get very excited about that, about being a good little administrator's wife. I have my own life, my own ambitions. I want to help out my parents. We had a couple of bad arguments about that in Italy."

Rayel let her talk, let her work through all of the complicated things she was feeling. In some ways, Jenny was a traditional woman. In other ways, she was the new and liberated woman, intent on finding her own way in the world. All of that was difficult enough to sort out by itself, and now Rayel had entered the picture and messed it up even more. Though, when Rayel mentioned that, she was kind enough to say he wasn't part of the mess. But he was.

Jenny wanted to go back to California and leave Manny here. She wanted to have a stable job there of her own. Her parents were all right with the idea. But Manny's parents weren't. She and Rayel had spent an entire afternoon together before she went back to Olongapo to talk to her parents, and he picked up something a little different in her behavior, something that started to haunt him.

"What's the matter, Jenny? Why are you crying?"

She looked at Rayel lovingly. There was no question about how she felt, as far as he could tell. "None. No reason." He didn't push it, just held her until morning.

Rayel fiddled around his apartment over the weekend, counting the hours until Jenny would return. He fixed a cheese sandwich and ate it while looking at the photo of Jenny standing by a stone wall in California. The computer keyboard was dusty, and the Crow needed work, but he couldn't find any motivation to do anything except jog in the mornings and think about her.

On Sunday evening the dean called and asked if Rayel could cover Manny's economics class the next day. Manny had been delayed in Olongapo, some kind of personal emergency was all the dean knew. Rayel went crazy, paced the floor, pounded the walls, Penny watching him in a kind of wonder.

Monday night and still no word. He called the Tablante's home in Olongapo. Jullie Tablante answered. Jesus, it would have to be Mrs. Tablante. Rayel used the pretense he was covering Manny's class and asked if he could speak to Manny. Shallow, transparent, but then he wasn't thinking very well.

Mrs. Tablante was cool, very cool --- brittle, in fact --- and said Manny was on his way back to Manila. She knew a great deal of how things are going on about Jenny and he, Rayel had a hunch. She'd said Manny was on his way back. She hadn't mentioned Jenny or used both their names or a plural pronoun, indicating both of them were returning. Rayel was screaming inside and wanted to ask about Jenny, but he had the clear sensation Jullie Tablante had no interest in talking with him about anything.

He hung up and went absolutely wild in his head. The phone rang fifteen minutes later. It was Jessica. She said Manny quit his job at the university and he and Jenny were leaving for California tonight at around nine. The couple bid goodbye to Jessica and the dean about thirty minutes ago and were now heading for the airport. "Rayel, a letter was given to me for you, hand-delivered."