Mama Doesn't Know

photo: j.cuevas





Mama didn’t know! She thought I was asleep! I was closing my eyes like this and she took me for asleep! And then she left!

To work! She was going to work! There in the city. In the big city! When she makes money she will come back. And then she will take me with her. We will ride a boat. And I will see big buildings. Tall buildings! Taller than trees!

No! Mamma will come back. She will come back! We will go to the plaza and we will fly kites! You know? Mamma’s kite snapped! It went like this… Tog! And then it dove. Weeeeeng. Hi-hi! My kite didn’t fall! It fought the wind! Mama didn’t keep away from the wires. Poor Mama. So her kite got caught!

You know? When she comes back? We will go to the beach! We will swim! She will teach me to swim! Mama taught me to swim! She bought me a floater! Come! I’ll show you. Here! Floater! She bought it from the big city for me! So that I won’t sink! But I couldn’t swim! I kept on falling into the sea. When Mama comes back, she will teach me to swim.

No! She will come back! She said she will come back when she has money, and I will go with her. To the city! No! Lola Tiaga will let me! No! She won’t get sick! She won’t die! She won’t cry! Noooo!

I don’t like it here. Kitkit always hurts me. Auntie Bel always screams. Mama doesn’t scream. You know? Auntie Bel has a new baby. There in their house. It’s so small! It has very small hands! I watch it everyday so mosquitoes won’t bite it. I cradle it! Like this! It doesn’t like being cradled. It keeps on slipping to the floor. It cries. Auntie Bel smacks me. She gets mad and then she slaps me.

Next Christmas, Mama will come back. Next Christmas! She will buy me a pair of shoes. No! Mama will come back! No! She won’t marry! She won’t! It’s bad! Baaad! Noooo!

You know? Uncle John has a new wife. And you know who his new wife is? It’s not Auntie Bel! He brought her here when Auntie Bel and Kitkit were at Lola Saling. Lola Tiaga cried. She sent them away. Uncle John’s new wife cried.

You know? Auntie Bel and Uncle John fought. Uncle John hit Auntie Bel. Here. In the belly. Kitkit cried. He fought Uncle John. He bit his shirt. Like this. Uncle John pushed him. He fell against the wall. When Kitkit grows up? He will kill Uncle John. Kitkit’s nose bled. His head hurt. I don’t like Uncle John. He hits Kitkit all the time.

Auntie Bel took a knife. She stabbed Uncle John. He ran away. He jumped down the ladder and ran away. Lola Tiaga was angry. She threw Uncle John’s clothes out of the window.

You know? Auntie Bel’s legs bled. Here! We took her to the hospital. Lola Tiaga said she would have died. Then she will kill Uncle John.

Mama will send me to school. She will have plenty of money and then she will send me to school. You know? Auntie Bel mortgaged our farm. Lola Tiaga told me. She got sick. She got mad with Auntie Bel and now she wouldn’t talk. Now Auntie Bel always screams. She screams at me and screams at Kitkit. Now, Kitkit would not talk to me.

I will go to Mama. Mama doesn’t shout. You know? Mama kissed me before she went away. I was closing my eyes like this and she fixed my blanket and then she kissed me. And then she left! She closed our door and went down the road. She thought I did not know. She thought I was asleep! But I was awake! I was awake all the time and I was watching her! I saw her lift her heavy bag and I saw her leave! But Mama didn’t know! She doesn’t know!

Gender Who?

BJ was always angry with me these days.

We were discussing the direction of the feminist movement last night, and I said to him, more in annoyance with his newfound commitment than anything else, that it seems to me it has deteriorated into a scramble for funds from conservative funding agencies abroad, even from big liberal imperialist organizations, and he balked at me. “What are you talking about???” Then he slammed the door right to my face.

He was very generous otherwise: always making sure there was a job for me in every little grant they got: process documentor, writer-editor, researcher, what-have-you. He and his wife had this nice little NGO that built local capacities and lent money to farmers. I once went to their training-workshop and afterwards, I gave BJ a blow-by-blow account of what transpired, and he hung up on me.

I happened to ask why was the ex-senator there? What did she think she was doing, dropping by to say hello to the farmworkers? And this lady in long loose sequined blouse and tight silk black pants lecturing rural-poor women about the virtues of piggy-banking, didn’t she think it a little shameful to be landing there like that, straight from traipsing around the globe, laptop-totting, an ear to her mobile phone, where did she get the notion to coax the peasant class, in Taglish at that, to help each other raise chickens hogs and goats, to help each other carry baskets babies laundry and proclaim to all and one that the way to a better life is slow and hard, but a penny kept a day is how savings and capital build-up happen?

He cut me short. “Our women beneficiaries are happy, okay? Despite what you feminists think.”

I said of course I am a feminist. “Is anyone not?”

He sighed. “Rina” – that’s his wife’s first name – and he sounded like somebody he is closely associated with just met Karl Marx’s sister and he has shaken hands with her, too, “calls herself a genderist.” My jaw really fell at that and for a few seconds I could not speak. Then recovering, I spat into the mouthpiece, “Oh, how ignorant.”

He sounded genuinely surprised, and then he said oh shit, and the line went dead.

Not nearer any point of pain

He liked cars with tainted windows. Cool inside and laced with the sickening odor of Glade air fresheners. To protect oneself from the gas exhausts, he said, and the noisy traffic-jammed highway. He had his way with me: he was paying for the rides. While my head turned against me, my stomach churning and turning. A stupid ailment, he called it, but would not deign tell the driver to turn off the aircon and open the car windows to let the sun and breeze in, like I wished, for fear I would make a trail of vomit in the air. At his hotel he would drag me up the stair, gagging my mouth with my own hand lest I puke on the feathery carpet, and in the bathroom his face would be distorted with panic as he rubbed my back up and down, up and down, all on the wrong places and not any nearer any point of pain.

He limped. Left leg shorter than the right. Hid his defect with a skip to his gait. Good leather shoes, fine clothes, finer manners. Nice car. He didn’t have to walk long to expose himself.

Gay men scare him. His one encounter stained him for life, he said to me one night that I was reading on one side of his bed. He was sitting alone inside this movie house staring at the screen when this man to his left stood up as if to go out. Before reaching the aisle the man stopped. Stopped between his knees. I sat bolt upright. What did you do??? I ran, he said. He was pushing his cuticles with his nails, a slight pout on his lips. I screamed. I said to him I’d tell my dad. Swore I’d get a gun and kill him.

He always slept with his back to me, pants on. Why do you do that? I asked. He said you never know when a fire burns the hotel down. Why not put your socks and shoes on as well? That’d make you readier to run! I'd say. He would leap out of bed, arms thrashing in the air. It’s all sex you could think of! he would scream. Not really! I'd say to him, putting the book down. Besides, we hardly had sex in all those years that you made it out to your colleagues and fans you have hot sex with me! My hands shot out of me, palms open. Then have sex with yourself!

He would cart his pillows and blanket and drag them about the room, pitch a tent on the floor.

I would read until I dropped off to sleep. But at dawn when he would be snoring by my side I would quietly make love with myself. I'd feel better afterward that I could kick him out. Move out, Big Dumb Boy, I'd hiss in his ear, I’m going to sleep now I rather want the bed to myself. He liked that. He would gather his pillows and blanket and set himself on the sofa. In the morning, he would be feeling so sexy for having been asked last night that he would nuzzle my shoulders and nape, kiss and hug me from behind, and go out of the room humming.

Isang Araw sa Katanghalian

Pinagbabaliktad ko ang mga bato, pinagtutuwad ang mga flower pots, subalit di ko makita ang susi sa pintuan. Siguro nakalimutan ni Jano. Puwede ba iyon? Saan naman kaya si Sarah at ba’t sarado ang mga bintana sa itaas. Di kaya’t nasa loob siya? Nakatulog sa sobrang pagod? Iyong tingala ko at akmang sisipol, bigla may narinig na anasan sa itaas. Boses ni Jano at Sarah. Nagsiseks sila?

Naupo ako sa malaking bato katabi ng saradong pintuan, nagpasyang maghintay. Sa biyak-biyak na sahig na semento sa aking paanan ay nagpuprosesyon ang mga langgam. Nagbabatian, naghahalikan. Niyakap ko ang bakbak na puno ng mga papel at labahan. Sa kabilang apartment kumakanta’t nagigitara ang binatilyong madalas kong nakakasalubong at nakakangitian sa daan. Bye, bye Miss American Pie… Bakit kaya bumalik si Jano. Di ba’t sabi niya’y me importanteng lakad sila ni Omeng ngayong linggo? Umungot ang pintuan sa silid-tulugan. Napaigtad ako. Tapos na sila? Tumayo ako. Aktong kakatok, nang bigla’y pumalandit sa hangin ang maigting na boses ni Sarah, sinundan ng pabulong na sagot ni Jano.

“Ginawa mo na iyan nun! Gagawin mo na naman uli ngayon?”

“Lakasan mo pa!”

Nag-aaway sila?

“Tatakbo ka na naman? Diyan! Diyan kayo mahusay!”

“Marinig ka ng kapitbahay!”

May mga paang nagtatakbo pababa ng hagdan. Kumatok ako. Dire-diretso ang labas ng pintuan ni Jano. Madilim ang mukha nito. Ni hindi ako tinanguan. Pumasok ako, alumpihit ang hakbang, ipinatong ang bakpak sa upuan at dahan-dahang umakyat ng hagdan. Bukas na ang kanina’y nakasarang mga bintana. Nakatanaw sa labas si Sarah, nagyoyosi.

“Bakit iyon?”

Tiim ang bagang niya. Ni hindi ako nilingon. “Dumating ka na pala.”

“Ba’t andito si Jano? Nagpaalam siya bago ako umalis, ilang araw raw siyang mawawala. Me lalakarin sila ni Omeng.”

Nanginginig ang mga daliring me hawak na sigarilyo. Naglalarong parang ulap ang usok sa kanyang mukha.

“Buntis si Emma. Iyon ang lakad nila.”

Girlfriend ni Omeng si Emma. Walang nakaiskedyul na kasalan, pagkakaalam ko. At tensiyonado lagi si Emma sa mga araw na ito. Pero lahat naman kami tensyonado lagi. Sunod-sunod na reyd at hulihan, pagbobomba sa kanayunan.

“Anong pasiya ninyo?”

“Ayaw nilang ipaalam.”

Nila.

“Gusto ipaabort.” Mapait ang ngiti at nanglilimahid sa luha ang mukha na lumingon sa akin.

Saglit akong nagulat. Umiiyak siya? Si Sarah umiiyak?

“Wala bang magagawa ang mga medik sa mga ganitong bagay?”

May punyal na kumislap sa kanyang mga mata. Pagkuway parang pagod na ibinaling muli ang tingin sa bintana. Humugot ng hininga bago nagsalita uli.

“Pinaakyu na nga pero ayaw matanggal ang bata.” Kampante at praktikal uli ang tono ng kanyang salita.

“Buti ipinaalam nila sa iyo?”

“E, hindi nga nila alam pa’no mangtanggal na bata, e.”

Napakunot-noo ako. Dinudurog niya sa pasilyo ng bintana ang hawak na sigarilyo.

“Nagkonsulta sa akin, kung pa’no ko pinatanggal iyong beybi namin, nung iwanan niya ako sa QC, nang tumalilis siya papunta rito sa Mindanao.”

Natulos ako sa aking kinatatayuan.

“Ngayon niya lang binanggit sa akin iyon, alam mo ba? At ngayon niya lang tinawag na beybi namin iyon.”

Nakangiti siyang humarap sa akin, basa ang mukha. “Pagkatapos ng limang taon.”

Patda akong nanatiling nakatitig sa kanya. Sa hataw ng araw na tumatama sa kanyang pisngi, parang maliliit na sapa ang kanyang mga luha.

Shit and Double Shit

May mga araw na para akong ligaw na talangkang walang batong mapagtaguan. Walang makakausap na di ka bubugahan.

Si Jim ay nakahilata sa ratang upuan. Nananakit ang likod ko at kailangan ko ng mahigaan. Ang init sa itaas at mukhang lalong mainit ang ulo ni Sarah. Kahapon pa kami di kinikibo. Pababain ko kaya para mananghalian.

Iyong akmang katok ko sa nakatiwangwang na pintuan, inabutan ko siyang nagmomonologo, na lalong nilakasan pagkapansing nakatayo ako sa kanyang likuran. Ang kailangan raw sa Mindanaw na mga kadre, iyong matatatag. Gusto kong mag-about face. Inspirational talk ang kailangan ko, hindi ED, puwede ba. San na kaya napunta iyong kinakanta niya nung mga nakaraang linggo, tungkol sa husay ng mga taga-Mindanaw. Taga-Mindanaw raw ang nakaisip nung Welgang Bayan, pati na ng Lakbayan. Ngayo’y parang ilang araw na siyang puro puna, puro reklamo. Nagpapagpag siya ng mga alikabok na naipon sa mga tokador at aparador, alauna na, hindi pa siya kumakain. Kagabi’y inumaga siya kangangatngat ng dulo ng kanyang lapis. “Para kang rebolusyunaryong daga diyan, matulog ka na” ani Jim. Bahagya lang siya umangat ng mukha, parang galit pa at binati.

Nadadaganan na raw siya ng karami-raming trabaho. Pa’no raw, iyong mga kadreng maasahan sana ay di nakatiis, nagsialisan. Si Lukas raw na masinop kung magtrabaho ay umuwi na lang, masama pa ang loob. –Ano pa ba ang gusto nila? Sila na nga ang tinutulungan.—Ang tinutukoy ni Lukas, ang mga kasamang Moro. Bumalik na lang daw si Lukas sa Kordi, ni hindi pinruseso ang paglipat, pati trabaho niya sa NSC, iniwanan. Ibaloy naman daw siya talaga, palagay niya raw mas tanggap siya sa kakordilyerahan at mas kailangan, bakit ba niya ipagpupumilit ang sarili niya rito sa Kamorohan.

Napapalakas ang kanyang paghampas ng feather duster, at parang ulap na nagliparan ang alikabok.

“Bibigyan ka naman ng mga kasama ang hirap namang turuan, sa halip na tulungan ka, papasanin mo pa—”

Nahahatsing na tumalilis ako pababa ng hagdan. Nakahilata pa rin si Jim sa ratan na upuan. May nagbukas ng tarangkahan at pabagsak na sinarhan. Bumungad sa pintuan ang nangangasim na mukha ni Beng, at umungot, bumagsak uli ang screen door. Napabalikwas si Jim, inilapag ang pahayagang binabasa.

“Shit that Lito! Shit and double shit!”

“Bakit?”

“Mag-aakyu, hindi man lang magsasara ng pinto?”

Dinatnan niya raw itong ginagalugad ang kanyang hita, nasa gitna ng dalawang tuhod ang ulo, hinahanap ng hawak na karayom ang kanyang acupuncture point sa pagitan ng puwet at titi.

Napahagalpak ng tawa si Jim. “E, hindi naman siguro sinasadya iyon, Beng!”

“Anong hindi sinasadya? Sinabi ko na sa kanya na darating ako Miyerkules! Miyerkules ng tanghali! Oh shit! Shit and double shit!”

Bumukas uli ang pintuan at pumasok na parang naglalakad sa pinagtamnan ng mina si Reni. Nagkatinginan sila ni Beng.

“Ah… ano’ng ginawa mo kay Lito?”

Nasa hagdan si Sarah, yakap-yakap sa braso ang tambak ng mga papel na may balak yatang sunugin. Interesado ang mukha nito.

Sabay na nagturuan sina Reni at Beng.

“Ba’t may bukol iyon si Lito?”

Namewang si Beng. Biglang taas ng dalawang kamay si Reni.

“Teka! Ang akin lang naman, pumili ka man lang sana ng pampukol mo sa noo ni Lito. Plato ko pa, e, ceramic iyon!”

“Ah… tinamaan ba?” At bumunghalit ng tawa si Beng.

Pati si Sarah na napako sa pagkakatayo sa hagdan ay di napigilang makitawa.

BLOGSHOT: Ilostit!

photo by karen dias



I have the stupidest pair of glasses. It is square and big, too big for my bony face. A temporary replacement, I told the clerk at the optometric clinic along Magallanes Street. I don't even remember the clinic's name. It's one of those sidewalk cubicles you will have a difficult time looking around in if there were three customers walking in at a time. I didn't ask for a receipt or the clerk's name. A one-hundred peso purchase is supposedly disposable garbage a day after. If you don't know me.

She was good, the salesclerk. Understood right on life's less emulated virtues when I asked for the cheapest they had. But maybe it was because I said to her not to call me guapa because I'm not guapa, I'm a boy, little boy blue. How she giggled at that. Didn't stop smiling. Made me wonder if she got a girl-bf or got a crush on one, or she was just not used to being spoken to in English like she mattered. Probably she was just counting on my coming back to her for a real replacement of the one I lost. A costly trip that would be, sweetheart, one I'm not likely to make soon.

The one I lost. I could not be thinking of my eyeglasses? Or of the laptop that broke down before New Year's Eve and is still held hostage by the computer guy who I suspect is overcharging this time? Or of the jobs that my friends in the NGOs liked to offer me so that I would talk and talk as I bit into their well-dealt sowhatdyathinks until they knew what to do without me bitching? I had seen how many of my one-pagers and two-liners turned into press relations speeches and three-year programs that took care of children's tuitions, SSS and Philhealth payments, gas and gadgets, while I hanged in the sun to dry until I got to love it there in the sun.

Of late I have learned as well not to bleed too much over what got away or didn't come my way ever again. A dream research project. A writing and publishing grant. A teaching job. Now I'd like to think that what I don't have money to buy is at the moment not worth the purchase, I need not miss them, I will have them in time: a Doris Lessing's latest; a Charlie Chaplin set; a loyal laptop, a canvas as wide as my door; even just a quiet room with a writing table and no man pissing around. The best things in life are free, I count on that.

My life's constant companions are the books that, like the children I once had, I did love with despair but now, I can also freely give away. Let go, I tell myself, each time I hurt, knowing that they might never return or may fall in evil hands, be eaten by the elements, like the son I hanged up the phone on when he said You get me from here, you take care of me! Books don't hurt like that. But I recall how once when friends borrowed then stole, I cursed:

That what they took will not make them any richer like it made me.
That for taking from me they will not be better by me.
That what they destroy of what they cannot have will not grow around them ever.

That what I don't have will not make me less but more and more of myself.

Later, I would learn, too, that the friend who stole from you once will steal from you again and again. At first it may just be an Arundhati Roy or Mrs Dalloway or a bundle of stories on Switzerland and Germany you or a thoughtful friend took pains to photocopy page after page out of Granta, soon it will be a job, a friend, or a network of friends: a rope to get you by in your poverty, in the outway. Next it will be your sheaf of rip-offs incinerated with a blink of an eye, your life's gathered prose on the way to the typesetting machine, your journals of daily hurts searing the skin in the face, your first art works, the hard copy of your first drafts, and finally, your own words, a speaking position, what tiny audience you're left with, what little right to self-description you have: to speak about one's self in behalf of the self, unlaced by jealousy or hate, even the right to love, to burn a path to reach out to another soul in the cold, uninstructed by ethics, unmediated, and unobstructed by proprietary and brokership laws.

Thanks to their graces and harmless ways, you will find yourself walking a land mine of hopes blasting you to pieces.

And yet, ages later, you will have to thank them as a way of returning the favor. You didn't die, did you? You didn't get even, you didn't even get published, you only got better, madder, and bloody shameless as ever. Is that what you read, Jeremy?


So what did I lose? Beside a pair of glasses to see me through?
I lost my way, I suppose, while writing. So now I navigate the road aboard this hundred-peso joke above my nose and I skid as I walk like a boat lost and coasting along craggy mountain slopes.

My hope is that my friend Circe won't be far-off.
Don't follow me!

Fiction: So All This Could Have Been Mine?

SB Alojamiento

She was plump as a pillow. Looked like she had been left to herself in the kitchen most of the time. Pink cheeks, pink lips. She was especially plump around the belly. I was feeling giddy, like demons were dancing and somersaulting inside my head. Standing there in your yard in front of her, I couldn’t believe what I had just done. I had the notion of retreating. But held out. I inspected your tiny house. So this is where you keep her? I asked for you and she almost turned away, like she wasn’t finished stacking the firewood under your stove yet and she still had to clean the fish and by and by you’d be coming home and she had not even cooked the rice.

“You’re his officemate?” she asked. She must have been accustomed to human rights cases pursuing you down to your hovel. I did not reply and she looked me up once more.

“You’re Incomplete?” she asked again. She had a sullen voice that could have only come from weariness.

“Can I piss?” I answered. “Is there a CR?”

I meant to be a pestering burgis, and already, my eyes were taking in every dreary detail of her environs – earthen jar, plastic plates and plastic glasses; banana peelings on the table and one under the chair; unwashed dishes and uncleaned fish in the sink; coconut husks, a litter of paper, among the fallen bundles of firewood under your stove. The corner of an unrolled mat peeped out of your half-open room, baby’s bottles rolled among empty glasses on the floor, and unwashed diapers spilled out of a pail beside a plastic pee pan under what looked like your writing table. I set my Tamil-woven bag on the wooden bench while I looked around the walls for a possible exit to the urinary. She indicated to me the direction, and I went out of the same door I got in, slunk between nipa thatches, and was surprised to see you had a decent toilet bowl. On the line above me hung your nylon underwears. Red, blue, green. With black prints. I almost fell out of the latrine giggling.

“I'm not his student,” I said, as I picked my brightly-colored bag, put it on my lap and looked at her in the eye. Her lips paled a little. She was waiting for more words, I could see, and I tried to match her anger and her hurt.

“I like him, you know,” I said in a voice that tried to steady itself, “We…” I paused like I couldn’t tell her the rest of it, and she stared at me a moment, her mouth opening a little, before her face jerked toward the window. She was looking out into the sea, like her hopes were dashed anew and were now floating there. A glint in her hurt eyes had that and-now-this-again look, and I knew that I wasn’t a new case really. My fingers twirled with the tassels of my bag, my teary eyes tracing the blazes of the reds and greens and oranges and blacks and fuchsias of the hanging threads. I have a nice bag. I was telling her, you don’t have. She glanced at it, I noticed and I felt high, happy, mad. Had she asked where I got it, I would have told her I’d been to East Timor, scaled its mountain borders and consorted with the Tamil guerillas. But she didn’t. My bag was the last of her concerns. She was more interested in me, and it was I she was examining when I looked back up at her. I knew, too, that at that moment, I looked painfully young and beautiful in her eyes.

“He is always like that,” she finally said, drawing a breath, as she returned her gaze to the sea, her brows knitting with boredom and exhaustion. I almost laughed. You were really all she had, beside a thatched roof and a dirty kitchen beside the sea. And there I was, trying to taunt her with a bag that she didn’t have. But I was happy inside me. I was thinking of you. I was thinking, Now I have outhurt you.

“Why are you here?” she suddenly asked, as she turned her face back to me, more exasperated than anything else. She wanted me out of her house now, I believed, and wanted you home right then, now that she had a thing with you.

“Nothing.”

I was still playing with my bag’s tassels. “I just wanted to see you, I guess.”

She put her hand on the table as though she was about to get up and send me out.

“Now that he wouldn’t see me.”

That held her down another moment and she looked a little puzzled.

I made a funny face, my eyes big and wide on her. “I called him up today, you know, and he wouldn’t talk to me.” Her mouth dropped open.

I looked toward the door, went on talking. “There’s really nothing between us. Really. I mean, there was, almost, but I ran away. I ran away as fast as I could.” I stopped, catching myself grinning and seeing that she was slightly smiling herself. I wished she read English and had read Alice in Wonderland and recognized the line, but what a wide beautiful smile she had, reddish lips and even teeth. For a second or two we laughed into each other’s eyes, and fearing we would break into senseless laughter, I stood up and picked up my bag.

“You’re going now?” She really sounded anxious, to my bafflement.

“I think I have to. It’d be funny if he'd find us talking.” I reached for her hand and clasped it, and turned toward the door.

“Wait.” I paused.

"You're sure..."

“Yes, I’m going now. I’m sure.”

“No.” She looked lonely and pale and was trying to smile. I waited.

“You sure there was… there was nothing between you?”

I laughed. “I’m sure. There was nothing. It was nothing. He loves you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

I felt suddenly annoyed. “That he loves you?”

“No. That he doesn’t love you.”

My knees wobbled a moment. I faced her and held both her hands.

“No matter. The thing is, oh… now that I see you, and saw how it is here, I don’t feel as bad anymore.” I let go of her, adjusted the sling of my bag on my shoulder, and stepped toward the door.

“Would you know it… if …” I stopped, turned around and hang my head to one side. She was a confused heap, her hands making funny movements, her face a grip of anxiety.

“Does he go out with other women, too? Would you know? I mean, do you know of others beside you?” There was urgency in her voice, and the walls of your house shook with my laughter.

Then I stopped. She looked shocked and was flushing all at once and gripping the edge of the table as though she was falling.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh!” I went back to her and hugged her tight, and I lost my head a little.

Next thing I knew I was running down the narrow pathway and out into the road toward the highway. I had a sense of fleeing from something terribly sad and mad. People were staring and were moving aside as I came their way and I realized that I was laughing and crying all at the same time.