Promiscuous (Who's the slut?)

Chapter Thirty Two

Why should I care? But I do.

She hadn't loved me. She hadn't as much as given me a second look if it had not been for the sympathy they needed from the public. She hated my guts. My roots.

I parked the car in front of the hospital's building. I walked up the long plight of stairs. I turned to the left and froze in my track. What startled me was the touching scene in front of me. My knees were turning white that it curled into a tight fist.

"I have no one except Mamita." She was crying on his chest.

"I'm here." Those two words. Was that his line to lure vulnerable women? Had my eyes been deceiving me? My long lost brother Rave was soothing my sister. Ha! What a touching scene. I couldn't help the bitterness that was eating my insides. He's gentle with her while he's always rude to me.

"How endearing... Do you mind if I join you?" I clapped my hands just as the two separated like guilty stricken lovers.

"Maire..."

"You came. Mamita was in her deathbed crying your name." She spat at me. I would like to yank her lovely hair and sew her mouth to make her shut up forever, if that was possible.

"Really? While you were here crying somebody else's name?"

"Maire stop this." He grabbed my arm to block me from lunging at Laina. He put her behind his back in a protective gesture that hurt far beyond words could. I matched his stare with contempt in my eyes.

"I don't need you in my life Rave."

I turned my back on him as I felt the weight of my heart falling down the floor. I walked through the expensive hospital room just to find Mamita on the bed stuck with many dextrose on her arms and machine that supported her lifeline. I was looking at her for minutes when she opened her eyes slowly as if she sensed another presence in the room.

"Hello Mamita."

"Are you here to wish me dead?" She whispered hoarsely. I could still see the ever proud Mamita in her eyes contrary to her deteriorating health conditions.

"I don't know. Maybe." I shrugged. Her eyes closed. I panicked.

"Don't celebrate yet. I'm still alive." She smiled. Her mood was unpredictable. I'd never been in the same room with her longer than necessary.

"Not until I'm free and I can get access to your money." I tried to put the humor in my tone but I doubt if I succeeded.

"You'll never get a cent from me." She hissed.

"I'm your only granddaughter but you only wanted Laina." There was no accusation in my voice, only deep understanding although I didn't really understand why is that so. Too redundant of me.

"Because she obeys my every wishes."

"You never loved me."

Dead silence passed. I thought she would never answer me. Maybe silence was better than saying an outright yes.

"You are so like your father."

I shrugged. I watched her pale face with wrinkles. I thought before that she was like the statue of liberty, so formidable, indestructible.

"I don't see how. He was your pet dog. Ready to do your bidding." I don't wish to speak ill of the dead much less my father but it's the truth.

"He didn't, through out the years he was rebelling against me. I hated your mother."

"Just as you hated me."

"You see, she's already dead... but... she still has... a control over your father."

I realized then that maybe my father really loved my mother. He was forced to marry someone that eventually made him turn to alcohol again and lastly to drugs. He was a lonely man. So alone, like me.

It was tragic. Mind-boggling. Unrealistic. But somehow... truth is stranger than fiction.

"I loved you in my own way. You'll never believe that but I can't let anyone control me."

"No. You never let anyone control your ambitions."

She smiled weakly as she was raising her hand to me. I took it and felt the warmth from it. She closed her eyes and squeezed my hand as I heard her last intake of breath. The machine had given a loud final buzz. It was the line of death displayed on the screen.

The door was pushed loudly and there came Laina with the doctor and nurses. He took her pulse rate while shaking his head. I wondered how we stood by so calmly watching the doctor do the procedures. Laina clutched her hand on the railing of the bed with Rave ready to catch her.

In just a span of five days two people whom I called my estranged family had passed away. Had left me permanently. I closed my eyes and envisioned my mother. She was smiling at me as she tended the wound on my scraped knee telling me everything's gonna be okay.

"Marie Claire." Someone shouted from the doorway.

My body was heavy. Weariness was defeating me.

"Pumpkin!"

"Maire!"

I felt two pair of arms clutching me from each side. Two handsome faces were the last on my blurring vision.