Because They Were Here

Part 5

She found her mother clutching onto the leg of the dining table. It was the only thing left in what was once a home to a happy family. Anna said the only word that she could think of: sorry. The violated woman slapped the girl. An angry red grew on Anna's cheeks. It was not long until she was pulled into her mother's arms where she cried a waterfall. They forever clung onto one another until the day they would be separated once again.

They went to the market one day to gather ingredients for their reopened business and as they did so, a new person had come up on the soapbox. "Mas marami opportunities sa States! There's more opportunities in the United States! Mag asawa ka na! Get married! At mabuhay! And live!" Anna immediately hated the idea of marrying oneself to a white man in exchange for these said opportunities. It was no better than prostitution. She turned a cheek and passed by swifty, indifferent to whatever else the woman had to say. However, her mother considered it.

Not for herself but for her daughter. She wanted her to be free and to live a life away from chaos, to a newly born country still trying walk on its on for the first time, and to start over. Although she was only sixteen, Madame Kim applied applied Anna as an eighteen-year-old War Bride. Her husband took her across the world and married her in California where they raised three children together. Without sail and without an oar yet gliding, gliding smoothly to a western shore. He was not too bad, he treated her fairly and she even came to love him.

He is now with her protesting against the destruction of a important structure and stands tall despite a cane that he needs to support his old age. He wraps an arm around his still singing wife as she wonders if Yerin is sailing across the Milky Way, to the lands of clouds and asks to herself, where does it journey beyond the land of clouds? Elizabeth takes hold of her grandma's hand. She too observes the statue that includes three girls holding hands as they share a cylindrical pillar. One girl for every country where most of its daughters were deprived of innocence, normalcy, a life. Her mother. Her sister. Madame Kim. Her father. Yerin's father. A tear ran down Lola Anna's now wrinkled cheek. Though her skin was now old, her memories were as fresh as ever. She vowed to never forget despite the few years she had left. She sang the last words:

To the beacon light of a new dawn

Now, child, find a road