My Cousin Cel

photo by pinoy estacio




I could still remember when she was pretty. She would beam me the brightest smile every time I went to her bringing a paperback I sneaked out of the high school lib we used to huddle in. Boys turned away at the gate unable to cross the blockade of advice my uncle fielded. Strange that I didn’t feel sad watching their stooped backs and my uncle’s grave face discussing us. Strange that “cannot study” and “cannot marry” came with the word “epilepsy”. I was in the room with her overlooking the road when the high school boys retreated.

Then before graduation something in her heart stopped.

“I will not have them anyway,” she said, eyes to the window, my Science notebook bent in her hand. I just asked her will she ever marry? She had been sitting at the table barricading the door and ignoring my motioning for her to sit in bed with me.

Then she looked at me, face stern.

“And I will have no more of you.” She threw at me the crumpled notebook, dragged the chair and the table. The door opened ajar. She pointed her finger towards the stair.

“You’re the only friend I’ve got!” I jumped out of the bed throwing the pillows, tears streaming out of my unbelieving eyes.

“You will marry one of them stupid boys.”

“No!”

I gripped her wrist.

“You will leave anyway!!!” She wailed crumpled under the table.


She always fell head down, my Auntie would write to me as I read my life away in a college far away. We moved her to the room by the kitchen because she kept on falling down the stair. It’s a miracle she did not break her neck. Home, I would venture to touch her, reach for the scars that striped her brow and her cheeks. She would fling my hand and claw at my face. She spat curses. Cried at turns. Refused to read. Refused to talk for days on end. Made fire out of pages torn from my books and notebooks. Stepped on my glasses and pretended not to see. I stopped going home altogether. Went the furthest my books and my feet could get me.

I never saw her again.

But the facts did get to me: Dead face down on my forty-second birthday. Neck twisted, head turned up, eyes to the sky. A big cat with terrible deformity visited me, stared up at me for an endless time as I stood transfixed at the door.

At 52 how thoroughly schooled I am. None of them stupid boys married me. But girls’ stooped backs leaving my door still make me sad.