When fathers cry

By Emmanuelle

The Feelings article for this week was all ready for e-mail; it would have gone merrily on its way to Sunday Punch on this day of the endless deadlines. It was one of those “funny but nobody is laughing” topics; I was still floating on one of my crazy moods, a side-effect of having done too much math lately. Anyway, the recent crazed musings had been encoded last night on my beloved Louie’s trusty but definitely not rusty chips for innards, it had been saved on both hard and 3 + disks, and it was just waiting for yahoo.com to be clicked on.

It would have made good copy. It would have to wait for next week.

You see, I just had this guest. And you will have to read another article altogether. This. Rushed.

In a house where there were no men, only three women – Mom, doctor-sister and I – a male guest so early in the morning is a rare happening. So rare as to suspend cooking breakfast. Instead, we’ll have an early lunch later. 

He arrives on a sleek, blue Honda bike. It is not his black Yamaha Virago this time. Nor his blacker-than-night Revo. As I unlock the gate, we look at each other from across parallel bars. I know why he is here. I lead him not to the house, but to a group of bamboo seats, under a nipa shed, in the middle of a drippy rainforest garden – my favorite writing spot. He sits himself on my favorite bench. A slight morning breeze rustles by, sways the leaves of a big mango tree apart, and a peek of blue sky shines through. As I said – my favorite writing spot.

And as I said – I knew why he was here. The only places in this town where one can find the complete copies of Sunday Punch, from January of this year to the past recent week – would be at the Mayor’s house, the Municipal Library, or at my house. At the early hours of the morn, one does not barge in into the Mayor’s house or the library. It has to be my house. If I were in, and not anywhere on this island-studded nation. As the case is, I am in. He already checked.

There is the internet though. My readers seem to read Sunday Punch ahead of everyone else, through the website. Even ahead of the native Dagupeños, Pangasinenses, and every other Filipino. 

My guest says, “Cousin Jess called me up to inform me he read about Sarah in your May 7 column.” Jess is Jesus Estaris, whose present address is somewhere in New York.

I hand my guest a May 7 copy. I have it ready. As I said, I knew why he was here. In “A Father’s Daughter”, Bimbo is Bimbo Ritualo, and Sarah is Sarah Kay, his daughter. I used real names for once.

He reads my column on the second page. He reads quietly, head bent low, shoulders hunched. I walk away to a far picnic table. I look around, everywhere, but not at him.

I know when he is through reading. I know he still stares at the article, his eyes not exactly seeing the prints. When he looks up, I am too far to see, but I know the tears are there.

We look at each other through the grassy distance. He is ready to talk. I transfer to a seat opposite him.

“The article is beautiful. It’s just like seeing Sarah again, being with her again. You framed her with the exact words. She was my little nurse, little cook, little help. She was my best friend. I know you know how life is now without her.”

We talk about a lot of things – destiny, especially Sarah’s; a parent’s helplessness, and guilt, for what should have been but was not; how things could  haven’t carry the blood of the diabetic in their veins. Lots more.

All the while, his tears flow, his cheeks glisten. I pretend I do not notice; he pretends he doesn’t notice mine, too. He gets ready to leave. I hand over more of the copies of the Sunday Punch.

“Can I have your poem reprinted and framed, with Sarah’s picture as background?”

You should be in the background, too. The poem is “A Father’s Daughter”.

He nods. As he slips through the gate, he asks one last question. “How can you write about Sarah so well, so familiar-like?”

Because Sarah was there, with me, when I was writing.

I watch him leave, across the parallel bars of the gate. He calls by landline less than an hour later. He sniffs; his voice is hoarse. He must have suddenly caught a cold, or sinus trouble. “I’ve gone through the article five times. I am reading it again.”

As I said before, boys don’t really cry. Real men do. Especially fathers.

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