Excerpt: Two Promises

Below is an excerpt from the story I've written. Set in Davao City, "Two Promises" is a story of two people---one is a wife, the other is a group of people---whose experiences became a metaphor for each other. If you find that the story really sucks, tell me that it sucks.

OVER DINNER, Juana was intently listening to Carlos, her eldest son, who was talking about his first week in school when suddenly it dawned on her that the seat across hers, the seat reserved for her husband, was vacant. It had been so for six years now. Carlos stopped talking. He noticed the sad look in her mother’s eyes as she’s staring at the vacant seat.

“Are you not angry of Papa?” Carlos asked.

“No,” Juana said.

“Do you still love Papa?”

“Yes.”

“But how can you love him when he left you, us?”

For a while she was dumbfounded. She didn’t know what to say. Until now she had not yet found an answer to the question, one that could satisfy the questioner and herself. Whenever someone asked her that question, whether it’s her son, or her sons’ or daughters’ teacher, or her neighbors, her standard response was to steer the conversation away. She was about to say something to stave off her son’s question when they heard a knock on the door.

“I’ll open it,” said Maria, the second child of Juana.

“No, I’ll open it,” Juana insisted. “Stay there and finish your food.”

When Juana opened the door, a lanky man, more than five feet tall, stood before her. He was bearded; his eyes deep-set; his cheeks sunken. He’s probably in his thirties, but he looked old for his age. His face was that of a man who seemed to have spent his lifetime worrying and whining and womanizing. Haggard might be the apt word to describe him.

Juana barely recognized him. If it were not for the man’s mole on the left part of his face, just an inch below the eye, she wouldn’t have recognized that the man standing before her is her husband, Hipolito, who, as far as Juana’s reckoning was concerned, had been gone for six years.

“Juana, I’m back,” Hipolito said, his eyes swelling with tears.

But Juana didn’t heed him; her attention was glued on the things Hipolito was holding. In his left was a bundle of three red roses. In his right was a small nigo covered with a silver foil. Juana knew what’s beneath the covering—pancit guisado. The roses and the nigo of pancit guisado brought her back to the days, those sweet and carefree days, when Hipolito was courting her; back to the time when she was not Juana but Jane; and Hipolito, Lito.