Sixty

THEY all sat to eat then, with the Señor leading the prayer.
And she was surprised when Eric and his father opened a conversation when they started eating, with the son giving sarcastic observations about something in hacienda transactions, or the father telling random memories about his son’s childhood, that made them all laugh.
If she or anyone else was worried it was going to be an awkward dinner, they were mistaken.
On the other hand, she had noticed a long time ago that father and son treated each other casually, but backed each other up quietly.
She had caught Eric watching his father with respect and a bit of adoration a few times, which he would instantly hide into a sardonic countenance or an expression of serious consideration. As if anything softer would make him less grown-up.
And observing and knowing them better now than before, she realized it was something Tommy used to do when he was little, doggedly following after their father’s footsteps, looking soft and cuddly when he wasn’t looking but serious and focused when he could see and when he was giving him instructions.
And Tommy still did the same, acting as much as he could the impression he believed their father would want him to be if he was watching.
And it got harder, really, since a child believed a person who had passed away would be watching from anywhere, at any time, as they had heard it from adults growing up.
She suddenly felt a need to reach out to her brother to hug him. But he was too far away to reach, as he was sitting on the other side of their mother. But he seemed to feel her eyes on him, and he looked over at her.
She smiled at him and mouthed ‘I love you.’ Her smile deepened when he pursed his lips—his expression when he wanted to say eww.
And then she looked at Eric again, and she thought that this was the man she would marry, someone who adored his father and who would be a good example to her beloved younger brother.
And she quietly thought of other reasons why she would be proud of being his wife.
And the shock of having to marry him years sooner than she expected started to die down.
Something inside her was settling, and it became a little bit more acceptable.
Acceptable that maybe, she could do this. That maybe, she would survive.
Maybe, she could make him happy if she tried harder than she knew to expect, especially if she would really try to learn everything she needed to so she could provide him the moral and emotional support he would need from a wife.
She would listen to him and to nobody else—well, except their immediate family—and argue with him, discuss their lives with him, so she wouldn’t get lost in the world she was about to enter that was very different from her own.
Maybe, it would work.
Eric seemed to feel her eyes, too, and he turned his face towards her, and he looked curious—and a bit suspicious—about her attention.
She rolled her eyes at him, and his shoulders trembled as he laughed quietly.
After dinner, they had everyone else in the living room and she and Eric took care of the coffee.
And strangely, she didn’t even feel nervous about what was going to get talked about.
She was mostly complacent by then. This was something she couldn’t stop.
She supposed she should be grateful the situation wasn’t disagreeable within their families.
That the issues they were facing were coming from the outside.
She realized she hadn’t really left the town for Manila.
Never.
The only time she remembered traveling out was when she was very little and they went to a relative’s funeral out of town, but she was so small then that she barely remembered details except riding a van with other people and then coming home in a car in almost the middle of the night.
That was how small her world was all her life.
She could have left for Manila to find work like the others, but she never felt any inclination to leave home or her mother and Tommy.
She knew there would be drastic changes. She had always known.
But now that they were coming in one by one, she felt breathless and a little lightheaded.
She put the creamer jar down a bit forcefully and Eric’s head turned to her.
“Are you alright?” he asked, instantly by her side.
She took a deep breath in and then smiled at him. “Yes… I’ll be fine.”
His eyes bored at her, glittering with the intensity of his observation. “Everything will be alright, baby. I’ll be by you all the time.”
Her eyes focused on him and he blinked.
“I mean, all the time you’ll let me. But on times you need your space, I’ll be with you in spirit.”
She snorted. “You’re so cute.”
He grimaced. “Have I been losing my charm?”
She snickered again, then she raised her face and he kissed her offered mouth.
They shared a secret smile before they brought the tray of coffee and cups on their saucers to the living room.
It was virtually taken out of her hands from there.
They would leave in the morning for a ‘visit’ to Manila.
As they took care of the marriage license and everything needed for an expedient and very private civil ceremony, they would look for a house for her and Eric to live at.
He currently lived in a pent suite in a high-rise in a privately managed city in the Metro, and although he used a personal elevator since he owned the building, he didn’t think it would be comfortable for them to stay there when they were in Manila.
He wanted a house with walled grounds and its own private gate and driveway.
He wanted it to be a place her mother and brother would feel comfortable staying in when they were in the Metro, too.
She found herself exchanging looks with her mother a few times until the Señor told them they should say something, that it really was all a discussion for all.
She bit her lower lip, but it was her mother who spoke.
“It’s just that for us, all these things Eric is planning seem very… grandiose. But we know this is what Arianna needs to get used to so she can perform better as your wife.” She was speaking now to Eric, as she started facing his father.
“She doesn’t need to perform—” Eric started to insist, but a look from her stopped him abruptly.
“There is no way you can continue whatever responsibilities you’re maintaining by humbling yourself to the level of a poor wife, Eric,” she told him. “That’s why I meant to study first and train in the next few years. You can’t have a weak and ignorant wife. I know that, at least.”
“Is that what you really want to do?” he asked, frowning. “Baby, if it’s too much, we can always work something out.”
“Don’t ‘baby’ me right now, Eric. Being married to someone like you isn’t like marrying an ordinary man. You’re not someone like… like my father, a regular farmer. You have a lot of work, people and their families dependent on you, and you are a wealthy man. They will expect something from your wife unless they knew her to be a frivolous, spoiled brat of a wealthy father who will add more to your wealth—I am no one.”
“That’s not the reason why I love you and why I wanted to marry you.”
She pointed at her face, at her injuries. “Tell that to your mother and your ex-fiancée. I know I have to be smart, educated, and brave so I can stay by your side. You promised me, I can bring conditions to the marriage. If you’re going to tell me I can’t strive to be someone worthy of a husband like you once we marry, that you’re going to trap me in a cage to protect me from people like your mother, then I can’t marry you.”
It was suddenly very quiet.
Eric was staring at her. But he didn’t look surprised, he just looked grim.
He sighed, then he rolled his eyes.
“You know you can ask for anything you want because I want to marry you. I want to bring you ho…” he stopped, his eyes the only things moving on his face as he glanced in her family’s direction, then he cleared his throat.
She felt her cheeks heating up as the Chairman grinned and Papa Sylver tried to laugh less loudly than he did.
“So, it’s going to be marriage for the two of you, then,” Papa Sylver concluded.
He sighed as he exchanged looks with his son.
“I need to tell my soon-to-be daughter-in-law a few words of my own, son.”
After a moment of another meaningful exchange of looks, Eric nodded.