Connection

Chapter 22

/LEA/

I told myself I’d keep my distance.

If Hael does not really want me around anymore, if this ten month plan of winning my own daughter back does not work, I’m ready to accept that my trying to be a better mother doesn’t automatically make things better for her. I know it’s yet again cowardly of me to even consider giving up when I promised myself that I’ll be the mother she wanted this time— one that tries and shows up and is ever present. But I started thinking to myself: kailangan niya pa ba? Am I still trying to fix this severed connection of ours or am I just forcing it now?

Because I finally know one way to be a good mother to her, and it is to stop asking her for more than what she can give. 

But then, she called me Mom again— an inadvertent acknowledgement of who I am in her life, seemingly telling me that she hasn’t stripped me of that role yet.

“Please be my mom again.”

Her words echo in my mind in a gentle, unmodulated tone just as she said it, but I want her to repeat it for me just so I can really be sure that it’s what I heard. If I correctly received the message she wanted to send. Did she really ask me that?

“D-do you… do you mean that?”

She turns her head back to me at my question, her face without expression, as if this isn’t a big deal to any of us, “Do you mean to ask if I’m sure about that? Because I also don’t know. What I know is that I have long needed a mother who can play that role better than the first one,” a car passes us by, briefly casting light on her vulnerable eyes. “It’s up to you now if you can give her to me. No pressure though. I’m not expecting much.”

“No, no, no, no. I want you to expect something,” I say, perhaps out of fear. “I’m gonna give her to you, Hael. I promise I won’t screw this up again.”

I know better than to say a promise that I don’t know how to fulfill, but I said it out of desperation to keep her where she is now. My daughter finally said the one and only thing I wanted to hear from her, of course I’ll say everything to assure her that I’m worthy of it. I have no idea how to do it but I at least know what not to do to be the mother she is asking me to be.

“I’ll know when I have her. Only then can you prove to me how true you are about that, Mom.”

I smile at her, half amused, half sad, “How did you grow up so fast?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

“No,” my answer was short and was cut short when Aga rang my phone. “We just pulled up,” I say even before he can talk on the other line.

“You two okay?”

“Yeah, both are still alive. We’ll see you in a minute,” I press the end button with a small smirk when I remember something. “Hael, do you hate your dad?”

She looks away for a second, as if contemplating what name to call the feeling she has towards her father after the truth he carelessly dropped on her. “You know, I had always had this quiet blame on you for breaking the family. I thought, you were a shitty mother, maybe you’re a shitty wife too that’s why Dad left. In my mind and in my eyes, Dad is the better parent because he treats me better than you do. Then it turns out he’s just overcompensating for being the same shitty thing that he is.” Her hatred may be real but it’s not as intense as the disappointment that overwhelms her litany. “I hate his betrayal on you, but I feel like I got betrayed too and I hate him more for that.”