They got married in a simple ceremony in Daraga, Albay, in an old Franciscan church safely perched on a hill with a panoramic view of Mt. Mayon sloping gently, the sculpted cone often veiled in a thin mist. Strange how such a thing of beauty could be so deadly. In a violent eruption in the 18th century, the church in Cagsawa was destroyed by molten magma which spewed from the crater in gigantic fireballs - burning, ravaging, burying the church and all the residents who took refuge inside. Only the upper half of the belfry remained, a mute testimony to man's helplessness against nature's fury.
She promptly got pregnant. When the school year ended, Bernabe took her to Binmaley, Pangasinan to meet his relatives: his mother, Graciana; his sisters, Leonarda and Leoncia, his youngest brother, Alejandro. Two other brothers were in California. His father, Alipio, died a few years back of tuberculosis.
They lived in a thatched house perched on round coconut posts with a veranda, three bedrooms, a sala interconnected by a narrow corridor to the dining area, the kitchen and a “batalan” - a back porch where large earthen jars were always kept filled with water from an artesian well. An outhouse was located at the corner of the yard under a santol tree. A small shed for storing harvested sheaves of palay stood a few meters from the house; beside it was a small haystack. Farm implements were stored under the shed: a plowshare, a mortar and pestle, a cart wheel. Chicken scratched busily on the ground for grubs, worms and other insects which hid under strewn straws.
She learned to speak Pangasinense, a hard, guttural dialect similar to a dialect spoken by the hill tribes of Benguet. She learned to cook pinakbet, even tried a hand with the mortar and pestle which kept slipping from her small hands.
In turn , she tried to teach them Bicolano, but they just shrugged their shoulders and smiled.
She gave birth to a son, Teodorico, a frail looking baby, dusky like her with alert brown eyes. A midwife attended to her; after the umbilical cord was cut, a basin filled with hot water containing tender guava leaves was brought inside her room whose windows were tightly shut . The midwife washed her whole body with the crushed guava leaves. She tried to protest but her mother in law assured her that she'd be up an about in no time. She felt nauseated for a couple of days, relieved only during the intervals when she suckled the baby.
After her maternity leave, Flora and Bernabe had to return to Sorsogon. The baby who was too young to travel was reluctantly left behind as a ward of his grandmother who could not hide her delight, dancing about as she hid the baby in a room as the couple boarded a karetela to begin their journey. She felt bad about leaving the baby, almost had a row with her mother in law who forcefully dissuaded her from bringing the baby along.
