Thank goodness for the handful of coins left in her purse.
It took a lot of walking, a train and two jeepneys but she finally made it home. The doorstep lights of the other unit were turned on, a stark contrast to the darkness that led to Val’s apartment. Her mom was probably still out.
In the shadows, she fumbled, fitting the right keys in the keyholes. When she finally got in, she switched on the light and gave a start. Her mom was stretched out on the sofa, still in her teacher’s uniform, one palm resting on her belly, her mouth slightly open in blissful slumber. She looked so small and vulnerable that Val’s heart got caught in her throat as she knelt down and spotted the cellphone slipping from her mother’s grasp.
Instinctively, Val fished her own mobile out of her bag and saw that she had missed all her messages, asking her if she had dinner already, what time she’d get home. Val leaned over and kissed her lightly on the forehead as way of apology.
She got up and tiptoed to the dimly lit kitchen. On the table covered in clear plastic wrap was a big bowl of spaghetti. It was her favorite kind: sweet, with generous chunks of ground beef and sliced hotdogs. It was standard kiddie birthday party spaghetti. Val got a plate and spooned out a generous portion of the red, sticky mess. She wasn’t hungry but she knew her mom would later check that bowl of spaghetti to see if she had eaten.
She loved her mom like that.
* * * *
Val remembered and dreamed a million things as she drifted in and out of sleep all through the night and most of the morning. It was as if her subconscious was neck-deep in work, filing away the deluge of emotions from recent events to keep her brain functioning properly, to keep her sane.
It was past noon when she was finally fully awake. The first thing she did was to reach for her phone. Sympathy messages flooded her social accounts. Fans had created the hashtag GoSilverPhoenixFight. A day after the game, it was still trending on Twitter.
Because she couldn’t help it, she checked Dessa’s and Jake’s pages. With relief, she discovered that both had not updated their statuses. What was she expecting anyway? My best friend Val is a boyfriend-stealing bitch? Or Jake: Val thought I was in love with her. D-uh.
Val took a deep breath and checked her dad’s company page. The last status was from that morning, advertising the company’s latest insurance scheme with the screaming headline: Are you living the life that you deserve?
Val clicked on the Likes link, and her phone screen was flooded by a list of hundreds of people who were either friends of her dad’s or genuine clients of the company. On the blank space after Search, Val typed in Fabian.
She waded through her dad’s relatives until she came upon an unfamiliar name: Sarah Mica Fabian. She clicked on the thumbnail and it enlarged into a photo of a teen-aged girl, her hair coiling past the shoulders of a loose flesh-colored cable-knit sweater. Below, it showed her trim thighs in black tights, the rest covered by knee-high boots. Behind her was the glowing magnificence of the Eiffel Tower, as bright and beautiful as the girl smiling at Val from her phone screen.
When Val grasped the truth, it felt like a slap in the face. She wasn’t a math wizard but she wasn’t dumb. The girl was eighteen, which meant that when Val was three years old, thinking the world of her father, he was already a father to someone else.
* * *
“Glad to see you’re enjoying it.”
Val nearly jumped from her seat. “Fudge! Don’t creep up on me like that!”
Her mom sat next to her, plunked down her plate and helped herself to leftover spaghetti. “With reflexes like that, I think you’re feeling better now.” She pressed her palm on Val’s head. “You looked like you were coming down with something this morning.”
“I’m fine,” Val mumbled and ate another forkful. “Why are you home early?”
“I wanted to see how you’re doing so I asked the substitute to take over.” She touched Val’s arm. “Honey, is this about the game? I caught the last two sets last night and I could tell that you were trying to keep the team together. You did your best.” She smiled at her fondly. “I felt so proud of you.”
Hearing the same words her dad told her racked Val’s heart with fresh pain. Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Was dad a good man?”
It was clear that the question completely caught her mom off-guard. But she was graceful as ever, the surprise in her eyes was quickly replaced by thoughtfulness. “When he was still with us, he was a good father. Remember your weekend trips?”
Val nodded, feeling her soul lift a little. Saturday was her dad’s self-proclaimed bonding day with her. They would go to the park, watch a movie, or go bowling. Sometimes, they would even go out of town for food trips, soaked in swimming pools until their skins turned red (both of them didn’t tan, but burned), and visited churches where Val would kneel down and make wishes. Those were happy days.
Her mom was intently watching her. “Was he a good husband?”
The silence hung between them as she took her time to reply. “He was and he wasn’t.” She smiled ruefully at her daughter. “You could say he did his best. We both did.” She sighed and when she spoke, her voice sounded sad. “Val, I probably transferred to you much of my anger at him when he left us, but the truth is, we’re both at fault.”
Val felt the anticipation creep up her neck, blanketing it with goosebumps. She had never heard her mom take any blame for her parents’ separation.
“I guess you’re old enough to know.” Her mom smoothed down her already smooth skirt, continuing in an uneven yet calm voice. “Honey, what I’m about to tell you may shock you. I tried to protect you from the truth as long as I could, but all these years of raising you on my own have taught me that I can’t protect you forever. You’re bound to know sooner or later, and it’s best that you hear it this way—from me.”
Val reached for her mom’s hand and firmly grasped it on her own.
Her mom took a deep breath. “When you were about two years old, something happened. I found out that your dad—he…he got another woman pregnant.” She waited for Val’s reaction. When Val calmly stared back at her, she continued. “But you see, she was not just any other woman. She was his very first love back when they were still in college. They broke up because she had to leave for abroad after graduation.”
Her eyes were earnest as they looked into Val’s. “I have always been in love with your father and I hung around, offering him a shoulder to cry on. One thing led to another and we began dating.” She smiled, her eyes creasing at the memory. “I was the happiest girl in the world.”
“Shortly after, your dad asked me to marry him. Our friends warned me that he was using me to mend his broken heart, or worse, to spite the girl, but I’d always been in love with him since we were kids. How could I refuse marrying him? I thought my love for him would be enough to sustain our marriage.”
It wasn’t difficult for Val to imagine how thrilled her mom was after her dad’s proposal. Love, even the one-sided kind, was real and powerful enough to make you forego good sense.
“He told me himself what happened: that the woman came back here and said that she was pregnant with his child. I was livid. I told him to leave the woman right away. He didn’t want to do it because of the baby.” She took a deep breath. “But I threatened him that I would take you away from him. He was confused. I knew—“ her voice broke and she sucked in her breath. “I knew he still loved her. I was afraid that if I let him acknowledge the baby, he’d leave us. ”
Val squeezed her mom’s hand.
“And I couldn’t let him do that! Having a family with him was the perfect life I had always dreamed of. I wasn’t going to let some stupid affair ruin it. Your father couldn’t leave you, so he agreed to my terms. Years later, what did I find out? That by some cruel twist of fate, he ran into the woman again, and they picked up where they had left off.”
“I don’t see why you should share the blame,” Val said bitterly. “He was the one who cheated on you. He left us for them.”
“You’re right,” her mom said. “But I still think he’s an ass.” Val’s head shot up in surprise. “What? It’s not a swear word!” Her mom looked so indignant, Val’s mouth twitched. “It’s an animal. Look it up. ”
She drew her daughter close. “But where did the wrong thing begin? When I agreed to be swept up by his hasty marriage proposal? When he cheated on us? When the other woman allowed the affair to happen? At the end of the day, we can finger-point all we want, but what really matters is what we do with the innocent ones. They suffer the consequences of our decisions, right or wrong.” She cupped Val’s chin, looking straight into her eyes. “And that’s you and your sister.”
At the word sister, Val expected her chest to erupt into hot, seething anger. Instead, she felt strangely numb. Maybe her heart had too much of a beating these past 24 hours and now it just wanted to rest.
Yes, she had a sister. She wasn’t going to force herself to accept it or do something about it. For now, it was enough for her to know. She had a hundred questions left to ask her mom, but she settled on the one that pressed most in her mind.
“Do you still love him?”
Her mom flashed her sad smile again. “Love is a decision. I may have been in love with him once, but I’ve decided not to love him anymore.” Her smile grew wide, reaching her eyes. “Because, sweetie, I love you more.”