There was a pang of anxiety the moment I got off the bus that day. It was unusually windy on a day at the peak of summer, very much not as I expected. I dropped my heavy bag carelessly on the ground and dust exploded right on, almost covering my feet entirely. The place was silent aside from the birds chirping at a nearby Acacia tree whose vines and aging trunks seem to have aged much in just a few years. The wind blew again and the leaves from the old tree rustled that seemed like a whisper, telling me that I should go forth. I retrieved my bag from the ground and headed straight towards the unpaved Calle Arboledo.
There really isn’t anything interesting about this road, aside from the memories that I had here. Memories that I shared with one particular woman, who might have been the reason why fate brought me back here. The rice paddies on both sides of the road lay dry, eagerly waiting for the rain to come and water its thirsty surface. We used to spend our afternoons here, sitting in the hay while watching the distant sun bury itself in the mountains of the Madia-as. Then she will watch me practice my back flips on the hay stack and laugh everytime I fall. I would chase her and wrestle in the hay until our skins get itchy.
“Are we doing this again tomorrow?” She asked while carefully surveying me with her big adorable eyes.
“Only if you want to,” I answered. Giving her a wide smile which she said was very distinct to me. A smile that she said looked more like teasing, revealing a naughty side of me.
“Of course, I do! I want to be here with you every day.” She declared and I planted a kiss on her lips, the kiss that I still cannot forget until now.
I suddenly came back to my senses and I realized that I have already reached the end of the road. There on the distance was a small kogon house surrounded with vegetable plots that seemed to have been harvested already. On the corner of the lot, under a small tree was an old wooden bench, it stood there right before I left. It looked the same just when I left it. There on that bench, I said my goodbyes to her as I was leaving for Manila the next day to go to the university.
“How will you live there? Who’s going to look after you? What about us?” she asked as her tears raced down her cheeks.
“I won’t be gone forever. I’ll be back for Christmas and next summer when school’s over. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to spend for each other when I get back.” I assured her. I ran down my fingers through her soft wet cheeks and brushed the hair out of her face. Her sad eyes almost killed me of pain.
We spent our last night together happily and not thinking about my departure in the morning. That must have been the best moment we shared.
My trip back for Christmas got postponed because the war broke out and I had to stay at a relative in Pampanga. I was able to get back to school two years later and the war wasn’t even over yet. During those two years, I have almost forgotten about her. I forgot to answer her letters because of all the tension that has been creeping out over the town. There were a few occasions, though, that her presence lingered on my senses and I felt a sudden guilt of not being able to visit her or even write her a letter.
Until I found out that she met another man already and that she bore a child until the man left her. They said nobody knew the father of the child and that she herself didn’t know who he was. There were even rumors that the father might have been a customer she met on a cabaret in Culasi. My mother told me she was dubbed a prostitute back home. A title I cannot dare imagine of her.
I never knew we would end up just like that. No letters, no conversations, no goodbyes. I decided not to go back to avoid the pain of meeting her again. I stayed at school for another year. I studied hard until my mind got stressed out. Finally, after three years, I plucked up the courage to go home, to go back and meet her again. I wanted to visit her, to see what she looks like now and to know how she’s been doing without a husband. My mind pictured out a girl I knew three years ago, anxiously waiting to see the changes on her face.
I stopped a few steps from the door of the kogon house and took a deep breath before I knocked. Pots clanged right after I knocked. I might have startled her. Then I heard footsteps coming towards the door, my heart beating even faster.
The door slowly opened and I felt my heart burst out of anxiety. Slowly, her face showed up from the dark. Her hair was untidy and she had a few gray strands on the sea of black. Nothing much changed in her face aside from the few small wrinkles in her forehead. Her eyes widened at the sight of me, I smiled out of courtesy. There was a long silence between us until I had the courage to break it for the two of us.
“Hi, how are you? I hope you still remember me.” I said, my voice suddenly went shaky.
She did not reply to me, however. Instead, she gave me a smile, a wide smile accompanied by the sudden gush of tears from her tired eyes. Then suddenly, a small figure came out of the shadow. A small kid bearing a confused look appeared from behind her, curiously looking at the stranger who just arrived. The kid smiled at me too, a smile that I am really familiar with. It was a smile that looked more like teasing, displaying the kid’s naughty side.
I looked at back at her; she was still smiling and crying at the same time. Then I realized, the kid looked exactly like me.
