Sixty-One

“WHAT happened this morning here between you and… oh god, I just realized… my son’s ex and my ex—”
There was a short burst of a snort from Tommy before he clamped a hand to his mouth and ducked his head towards his mother’s nearest arm, and Yna hid a smile. Or tried to.
Eric rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Dad, you’re traumatizing the kid.”
There was a bigger snort from her brother that had him totally smacking his whole face on their mother’s back.
“Hija, what I was saying,” the Señor, trying to get back on track as he tried not to grin—or at least too much—at Tommy’s machinations, “was that what happened this morning was deplorable, and I swear that it will never happen again as long as you’re here with us in the hacienda. The same goes for your family, as they will become my family, too. But when you marry Eric, you are going to be staying with him wherever he is most of the time. When it comes to your security, you have to compromise with him until, at least, you are more used to your new environment. You are going to be studying, too, and there will be other aspects of your new life to adjust to. Working with each other will allow less chance to get distracted.”
She was listening to him intently, and she nodded. “I can compromise.”
Eric’s eyebrows rose up in surprise. “Wow! You didn’t even give him a hard time!”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Why? You’re the one I’ll discuss compromises with.”
He thought for a minute, then sighed. “Okay, okay. As long as it is done now. You’ve decided. We’re going to marry each other on the soonest possible date. I suggest you and your family pack a bag right now so we can travel to Manila tonight. I’d rather you not be here when Helene’s parents make enough noise for what my father had their daughter go through after coming here and beating up my girlfriend.”
As Yna exchanged surprised looks with her mother and brother, Eric raised his phone. He took it out and glanced at it for a moment when his father was talking.
And right then, his father was also looking at his phone.
He was grinning. “He’s going to have a hard time getting his daughter out until morning,” he was saying. “He better not try and come here to make a ruckus. He knows I’d soon as file a case against his daughter if he does.”
Yna was looking at Eric. “Eric?”
He nodded. “Pack a little of what you may need until the morning. We can buy whatever else you three need there. Make sure you bring pertinent documents for the marriage license, okay? We will drive to Manila tonight so you can have at least from midnight to get sleep until morning.”
“What about my job?” Tommy was saying.
Eric cocked his head at him. “Are you telling me you’re going to miss your sister’s wedding to me?”
He went wide-eyed. “Okay.” Then he turned to the Chairman. “I will be gone for a while. I don’t know for how long, Sir Chairman. If that is okay?”
“Of course, it is okay, kid,” the Chairman said. We’ll cover for you.”
Mama Sienna had started to rise. “I’ll have to make sure all the spices and herbs are ready on the table for the others to use in cooking lunch tomorrow. Who will take over us? Can the neighbors do it while we’re gone?” She looked over at the Señor and the Chairman.
It was the Señor who replied. “I will oversee that myself, Sienna. Don’t you worry your head over it. Now, if you can have Yna here send me the list of what’s needed to prepare tomorrow, I’ll have one of the ladies set it up early. And if you may learn to use a smartphone, will you, my balae (co-parent-in-law) I have this feeling you will get more involved with feeding us once your—our daughter, my daughter-in-law—gets busy in her life with my son.”
It became a whirlwind of activity then.
After packing a few clothes and important things they would need, they left in an SUV behind one of the back gates, since they were told that Helene’s parents, their lawyer and maybe some goons were raising a ruckus at the front gate.
They traveled to Manila for a little less than two hours straight, arriving in a gated house somewhere in Alabang where they entered a heavily secured big gate to get inside the community, and then passed several huge houses before they arrived at their destination, another which was another huge house.
She understood this wasn’t where Eric stayed since it was a bit far from his headquarters in BGC. His father owned this one and preferred staying here when he was in Manila instead of the glitzier tower in BGC.
They were led to their rooms… three guest rooms side by side to each other wherein their mother’s room was the one in the middle.
“These rooms are too big for one person,” Tommy said, looking lost just by standing in the middle of the open door.
“Sleep with me,” was what her mother said calmly, although she, too, looked overwhelmed by the room assigned to her.
Tommy gladly walked over to their mother’s side, and they went inside the door.
“Three is not going to be comfortable in that bed,” Eric whispered near Yna’s ear when she started to move to go with them into the grand, cream-walled bedroom that looked like the picture she saw of hotel rooms in glossy magazines. “Don’t worry, there’s a door on that wall.” He pointed at the wall, where indeed, there was a closed room going to the next room—her room. “These are adjoining rooms. We used to have guests who drink and… party through the night,” he said, and she had to look at him in curiosity because of something that changed in his tone. His face was inscrutable, which only meant he was trying to hide whatever he really felt about the subject of ‘partying through the night…’
*It was during the time when his mother still lived here*, she thought, instantly sure. She had become familiar with the nuances of his voice and facial expressions when he was talking or thinking about his mother.
It wasn’t the time to ask about it… but she started to believe a while back that simply being a liberated party woman wasn’t what pushed Eric away from his mother, especially after being brutally exposed to her this morning.
And since she had been exposed to how this man cared for a person, it would be worse than bad if his mother lost his affection.
She tried to imagine what could possibly make Tommy lose his love for their mother and that, she could never do. But that woman she had met this morning…?
What could it possibly be? How had she hurt this man too much that just thinking about his mother made Eric put up walls automatically, determinedly, as if he was trying to shield himself from pain?
*What stupid thing did she do to her son…?* she asked inside her head as she started to feel angry.
He frowned as she continued to watch his face. “What is it, baby?”
She shook her head a little. “I was just thinking that I’d like to go to the other room through that door so Mama and Tommy will see they can easily go to me if they want to. Is that fine?” she asked him in a low voice.
He nodded. “Yes, of course. I want to make sure you’re all comfortable here tonight. if you need anything, of course, you can just so easily send me a message or call me. My room is at the end of this corridor, that way?” And he pointed.
The room at that end was right beside the room she was using.
He was the one facing the room as they stood there almost right at the open door, and she had her back turned to her two other family members. She rolled her eyes at him. “Is there a connecting door there, too?” she whispered.
“Ate Yna, are you going to sleep now, too?” Tommy asked from behind her.
She looked inside the room. “I will. I’m just saying goodnight,” she told her brother as she continued to stare at Eric, waiting for his answer.
“Hmm… I guess you’ll find out,” he told her in a low voice before looking in and calling. “Goodnight, Tommy. Goodnight, Mama Sienna. Have a good night’s sleep. You don’t have to wake up early this morning. We don’t have to go anywhere until later in the day.”
Both people inside called their goodnights back to him, and she was the last.
“I’ll not disturb you tonight. Sleep well, my love,” he told her tenderly before he lowered his head to kiss her on her forehead sweetly.
Then he left.
She went inside the room and closed the door.
“You’re sleeping here, too?” asked Tommy.
“Do you think we’ll fit in the bed?” she asked, still dazed. It was a big house. This was a big room.
“Ah-ah, no,” their mother said. “Tommy sleeps like a tadpole on water. He probably will hijack more of the half of the bed.”
“But Mama, that’s a huge bed! It is as big as my room in our little old hut!” he protested.
“Mama can sleep with me,” she suggested as she went to the connecting door and opened it.
“Wow! It connects?” Tommy asked, awed.
She nodded. “So Mama can—”
“But I don’t want to sleep here alone!”
Yna and their mother laughed. Tommy looked mutinous but he didn’t back down, protesting it was such a big room he might get lost in it.
“It only got four walls and nothing else, Tommy,” she argued.
“I can get lost behind those drapes,” he continued to protest, pointing at the heavy drapes that were floor-to-ceiling long. “It’s just too big. And it’s cold here. Can we ask if they can have the AC lowered? Or maybe we can just open the windows?”
“The air here is probably more polluted than it is in the province,” their mother worriedly said. But Yna could see she also didn’t like the cold. After a few minutes more of bussing about, they found the AC and heightened the temperature so it would not be too cold for the two.
She went to her room, leaving the door open, and they all got ready for bed, burrowing under the heavy comforters until the exhausted mother and son on the other bed in the other room finally fell asleep, with Tommy shamelessly clinging to their mother as if he was still five years old.
She sighed.
The big room. The AC. They were just two of the things—simplest things—they would have to get used to after she gets married to Eric.
As she watched her family accept the changes one by one, she thought about how they would all fare with big, more important changes. And it was her decision to marry Eric that brought this to her family.
And she prayed for all of them as she settled in her own bed, knowing many good things only appeared good on the surface, but they always have their own weight that they would have to carry eventually if they stayed.