Connection

Chapter 16

/AGA/

I’m not the most organized person one will ever know but today, I am spending my free time rearranging my office gallery. I remove the trophies and certificates that I and the company collectively won in the past decade, leaving only the photographs of my family. A photo of my parents is there to honor them as the pioneer of this business. I wouldn’t be here if not for them and I miss them. Mama died of health problems when I was twenty-one; Papa lived for nine more years before he, too, was gone. Because Audrey was pursuing medicine, my father had already prepared me to take over once it was time for me to do so. I can only hope that I am making them proud with everything that I do, despite the fact that Papa almost beat me to death for being the asshole that I was with my wife. They both loved Lea. She was everything a daughter-in-law Papa could ask for and Mama would have loved to spend Sunday morning with. It’s just a shame how little time they had with their grandkids.

My eyes go from them to the photo I shared with my seven-year-old daughter. Her missing tooth. Oh, I treasure that photo so much because that was the very first photo I had with Hael that was legal to her mother. That was when Lea started allowing me to be a father to her.

It’s always 4PM. Hael’s class finishes at four o’clock, then she’d wait for at least thirty minutes for her fetch. Oftentimes it’s Nanay Cristy, sometimes it’s Lea, but always me. I take advantage of that available thirty minutes to talk to my daughter, pretending I am fetching someone too. She has learned to treat me as the good man who’s always around.

“Hi, Mister!” she greeted me when she arrived at the waiting shed with her pink backpack and pink lunch box. Her smile along with that made me notice her missing tooth in the front.

“Hi, Hael! What happened to your teeth?”

She sat beside me, “I don’t know, it just fell. I lost my tooth yesterday.”

“Did you cry when it fell?”

“Yes, because I thought I was gonna die and it really hurt. But Nanay said it’s just fine because my fairy would arrive and replace it with a new one.”

Then there came a silence that was so comforting I wouldn’t mind spending all of my days like this. For as long as I’m with Hael. I’d look at her and a smile would instantly emerge from my face. She’s the heart beating outside of my body, even though she didn’t know she meant that much to me. I wished she knew how much I love her and how sorry I am for fucking up so bad I couldn’t even properly introduce myself to her.

“Who’s fetching you today?”

“Nanay probably. Mommy is busy at work.” there’s a longing in her voice that was quite profound when she answered. “Are you fetching your daughter here too? Can I meet her? Maybe we can be playmates! Is she just like me?”

If only I could. You already know her. You can’t have a playmate in yourself. “Yes... she’s very much like you. So, so like you.” those are the answers I have for all her questions. My heart ached as I was yet again so close to telling her the truth. How can I possibly tell my daughter that she’s my daughter without her mother killing me?

Lea warned me that if I ever tell Hael who I am, she’ll block all means possible for me to be with her. I’ll lose my connection to her forever. And maybe I was scared or I just knew that I deserved to be deprived of that so I kept my mouth shut. But I couldn’t keep my distance. I learned to be grateful to see my daughter grow from afar. I watched her play, laugh, get her first knee wound, and now lost her first tooth. Those things were a privilege to me.