Connection

Chapter 12

/AGA/

Hael’s words in the letter have edge points on them that cut through my skin, draining out my blood, replacing every fiber of me with torment. I start imagining that exact moment she’s writing that, but I can’t decide if I should see her shaking and crying or calm and relieved, knowing after that letter she’d make a cut she thought would end her suffering. Lea is inconsolable after reading it. Her tears that wet the paper, the weep she lets me hear melts a certain dauntlessness that had, until today, been intact. It’s like watching her mourn for our child again.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” it was futile to utter encouraging words at this point, I realized, there really is nothing that can make this better. “Everything’s going to be all right... hush.” I rub her shoulder, trying to calm her down.

In the next couple of minutes, all I heard from her was her sobs. Loud and shameless sobs. I let her do just that because nothing I say will really help our situation. She’s in pain— and that pain has a lot of blame and regret incorporated into it.

The sobbing starts to quiet down and for the seconds her head is in my chest, in between the silence, I wonder if we both attempted to stand on our daughter’s shoes but quickly gave up because it was just unbearable. I can hardly imagine the trauma and nightmares Hael had to endure before she decided she couldn’t do it anymore. Lea and I both did not see enough, listen enough, and care enough when she needed us the most. We let her suffer alone.

Lea’s arm slightly hangs in the air and her forefinger points to a certain spot on the floor. “There was a wine glass filled with her blood when I found her that night, you know. It’s right there, I remember, and with that much blood I thought… I really thought she’s dead.” her sobs are quieter now, albeit her shoulders still shake from time to time. There’s a thickness in her voice that hardly lets her form a word. “How... how could I do that to my own daughter? I neglected her. I hurt her. I was the main reason for her suffering. That... that man may have sexually assaulted her, but I’ve done things way worse to her.”

“You are not worse than what he did to Hael. Rape is rape, Lea, do not ever downplay it.” I say, trying to erase the image of blood she had drawn for me.

“All she ever wanted from me was a little appreciation; for me to see through her grades. I saw through them, trust me. I saw her stay late all night to study and ace her exams. I saw her try and fail, try and succeed. I saw her hard work but I didn’t acknowledge that and that was my mistake.” she sniffs.

“I don’t totally want to defend you for that, but Matthew’s death took a lot from you. You were restarting as a mother.”

“Why did I even bother to change my parenting style? It was ineffective. I was gonna lose all my children one way or another.” she says, seemingly disinterested in my opinion. I don’t even know if she can still hear me. “Or better yet, do not have a child again. That’s right, I’m never gonna have a child again.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think someone’s interested in helping you make one again.”

I didn’t realize she was actually paying attention to me until I felt her pinch on my belly and met her dead eyes, “Why? Aren’t you interested in having another baby with me?”

How does she do it? To look seductive even without trying— even with wet eyelashes and a red nose. It intimidates me. “I was not talking about me.”

“So you think no man will ever be interested in dating me? Sa ganda kong ‘to?” she argues. Her eyes are almost half-closed drowsy. Maybe she’s already sleepy from all the crying. Or it’s the wine. But how the hell did we go to this conversation? “For your information, I was the one who lost interest in loving again after...”