The white lie

White lie

It’s been almost
a week since the couple died. Rumors are already spreading but gossipers proved
nothing yet. I know that it is wrong that I still keep what happened up to this
moment but having it this way is the right thing to do. There were no trace of
them since Impong Ores, our grandmother took their children to Masbate last
Wednesday. What is only left is their old house. It looks totally different as
how it looks a week ago. What seemed to be a happy place is now nothing but a
memory.  It’s dark, empty and lifeless.

Tata Sebio is
Inang’s younger brother. A tall man with a curly hair, brownish complexion and
a face with some resemblance to those of Matt Ranillo. In him, I first saw a
grown-up man. Perhaps because I was raised alone by my mother since my coward
father left her. Tata Sebio became my idol as I grew up. He lived with my
mother for nearly a decade until she met Nana Isiang who worked  as a tailor for our dress shop by that time.
They eventually moved to the old stone house my uncle inherited from my
grandparents after they married.

As they married,
Nana Isiang got pregnant eventually. With this, Tata Sebio had to work harder
to earn enough to support his own family. He worked all day as a chaufer to a
rich Chinese businessman, thus, having less time for her wife and her child.
This arrangement lasted for eighteen years of their marriage.

Tata Sebio, at
the age of forty seven, looks ten years older than his age. Probably due to the
pressures he gets from his work. His time lessen more as his family grew bigger
with four children added. There was no sign of the musculous man I’ve idolized
back in my childhood. I keep on seeking one of my role models every time I see
him but instead, what I only see is a man faded away by his work. He became a
chain smoker and a drunkard and I can’t help but think of why he has changed.
Maybe, it’s because of his work that he learned vices.