10
Returning home is an experience. It means saying goodbye to Jojie and Venus. We had arrived in the Philippines with Muriel, but that headstrong adolescent who was both a handful and somewhat disrespectful has been lost to us. We return with Pandora, a very young woman who knows she is on the shit-end of the stick and is just glad to still have a stick to hold on to.
It also means rejoining Krissell, Ann and Ninay and introducing them to Pan. Pan might look like Muriel, but that's all. Her demeanor, values and core have been radically transformed. She is no longer Muriel.
We have the hardest time with Ninay who is truly pissed off in the worst way. There is little I can do to help Ninay with her feelings. So we just ride them out. Her worst problem is that no one, not even Pan will support her tantrums and childish behavior. Pan is the clearest on this and that is what has been sending Ninay over the top. Pan's subservient behavior undercuts Ninay's bad girl stuff. Ninay is out of step with the entire family.
It is Ann who finally cuts the floor out from under Ninay one evening at the supper table when she tells Ninay to shape up or leave the family. She tells Ninay that we have no place for her as she is behaving. Right there at the table, Ninay appeals to Krissell who tells Ninay that Ann is right. And then Krissell adds, Don't you dare ask Ganda, or God forbid, Jake. If you do, Ann and I will throw you out immediately!
I ignore the entire discussion as does Ganda. Pan just sits there, not saying a word but clearly looking on. Ninay has been her best friend, but that was then and now they are no longer even talking.
Ninay asks where they expect her to go? Krissell tells her in very simple Tagalog. She will be going back to the Philippines as she is still a minor and Krissell is her guardian. Ninay gets real quiet. Now for the first time in long time the reality of how lucky she is begins to sink in to her head. For over three years she has lived in the US without fear, without need and with a very comfortable life. She has come to expect it as her right. Ann and Krissell have just made it abundantly clear that she has no 'right' to it and she is damned close to losing all of it. She is about to argue that they have no right, but she knows Krissell at least does have a right to send her back. And even if she can stay in the US, the College education she is enjoying, her car, all will come to an end as will the connection to her only family in the world. Just as Pan has learned that cutting ties can be a very painful experience, so at this moment Ninay comes face to face with the consequences of her behaviors. She apologizes for causing an upset at the table and asks for permission to leave the table. I grant that and Ninay removes herself to another room.
I do not see Ninay until the next day and the change in Ninay from that moment on is complete. There are no more tantrums, no more 'me' stuff. The supper table returns to being a pleasant place. After a month of difficult behaviors, she settles down and finds a new normal.
But I do have a few problems. The first is the house. The house is now already too small for the people in it and how the house is being used. I have put it off way too long as is. Ganda has been tolerant, however as soon as I say something about it, she jumps on it as if our lives depended on it.
I work with a local engineer to build a house that has ten bedrooms. There are six of us now and two more coming.
Up to now most of the women have been on birth control (with the exception of Ganda) but there is talk of that ending and I am fertile. I have to consider that we may need nurseries and rooms for kids. Ganda, Krissell and I always sleep together. Ninay and Pan are sleeping together again. Ann needs her own room. We will be adding Jojie and Venus at some point. I want to give Ganda a place to lie down when she wasn't feeling well. That requires six bedrooms, even without any kids or a guest room. Within months we find land on which to build and the place is up within twelve months. The first floor is living room, kitchen, dining room, CR and office. The basement is laundry, utility, family/play room, network server room and CR. The second floor is six bedrooms and two big CR's. The third floor has three slightly smaller bedrooms and a shared large CR, and a master bedroom with its own CR and deck. There is an elevator for me for when I need it later in life.
We are in the home only eight months before Jojie and her 'daughter' Venus arrive. If anyone cares, that is seven women, each of whom I am fucking, and me. I am sixty-three at the time. With the diet I have been on for the last five years I have lost 65 pounds and now weigh 155. A whole lot better than the 220 that I weighed when I met Ganda.
The first month all seven women are in the house I just about lose it, there are so many hurt feelings and demands on my time. Ganda puts an end to the problems by instituting some regularity on who can see me when. I have nothing to do with this and am happy to stay distant from the process of the calendar.
From then on I am just fine as the pressure disappears. Ninay is nineteen. The only problem now is that we have two fifteen-year-old girls who need a regular screwing or they become unstuck from their moorings. And that is only a problem if it is known outside the family. It is the only thing that keeps me up at night with concern. I will be sixty-six before I can really relax.
It is fun watching hopeful boy after hopeful boy take our two little girls out to a dance only to get nowhere and bring them home earlier than they had hoped. Even Prom worked that way. The girls like to dance and go to a party, but then they need to get home. I would have been happy to see them leave, but they are having none of that.
Other than the happy arrival of babies from Jojie, Ann and Ninay, a boy and two girls, there is little that changed until about the time I turned sixty-six and Venus turned eighteen. The children are named Abraham Moses, Bella Charlotte and Rose Leah. It turns out that neither Ganda nor Krissell can have children. (Ganda because of a medical procedure she had after Muriel was born and Krissell because her plumbing is just screwed up.) Jojie, Ann and Ninay have no problems and prove it. The little ones we keep on birth control.
At home the supper table every night has me at one end, with Ganda to my right and Krissell to my left. Next to Ganda is Pan and next to her is Venus. Next to Krissell is Ann and next to her is Ninay. At the far end is Jojie. Days are hectic, Krissell is learning enough of my business that she is able to run it without me. Jojie takes over the company's books and for the first time I am able to have our books done completely in-house. All the other girls go to school through at least a bachelor's degree but are encouraged to further their education – even if that is on-line. Both Ann and Ninay get master's degrees.
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Epilogue
It has been many years since I wrote what precedes this. My need to not be married has never been an issue since I met my Ganda.
Oh, I don't think I mentioned that Ganda was my nickname for her. It is Tagalog for pretty or beautiful. She would called me Pogi and I would call her Ganda. She is shy and doesn't want me to write her real name down here. She and Krissell are here next to me as I write these lines. When I am done I will give this to them for safekeeping. I don't want anyone reading this until all my girls and I are dead.
As I lay down my pen in my very late years, there are stories to be told by my girls. My chronicle of how a man who had been divorced three times found redemption in the arms of seven women, is essentially complete.
I remain happily married to Ganda. Krissell is a wife to me as is Ann and Ninay. Jojie is also a wife to me and she seems happy for that! The martinet of the past is only a distant memory. She has been invaluable to us through the years. Venus and Pandora? They are still here. They are adults now and have been for some years. Both have given me children. Maybe when I die they will tell someone why they stayed and why they gave me two more sons and another daughter! I have no idea and they tell me I am a crazy old man when I ask them.
My business is now Krissell's, Ann's, Ninays and Jojie's. It has been expanded way beyond what I had done in my day. They support the household, and so Ganda and I are dependent upon them – other than for what I get from Social Security. Ganda thinks that is right. She and Krissell love and respect each other. For that I can only thank God. He or she must have a sweet sense of humor.
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January 10, 2076
My name is Abraham Moses son of Jake and Ann. My father passed away forty years ago. My mother Ann passed away last week. Her sister, Aunt Krissell, Aunt Ganda, and Aunt Jojie all passed away over the last decade.
I found the document, to which I attach this memorandum, in my mother's papers. I am the executor of her estate, which is actually pretty substantial.
I knew my father for the first twenty-three years of my life. He was an old man then and while I loved and respected him, his life and his women were something I never fathomed, they just 'were.' The fact that no one else had a family like mine was just the way it was. I am the oldest of six of us. I know from this document that there are or at least were two other children and I tried to see if there are any other living relatives. Dad had a sister, Rachel and she had a boy and a girl. They both had kids and I found those kids. From what I have heard, neither of dad's two older children ever had children of their own. Was that why we were born?
It didn't seem to be the case from what I have read, but I guess it is possible. It is true Father reports his mother telling him to have more children. And he reports putting the issue of children on his webpage but he doesn't seem to take that on as his mission.
My mother, Ann, and her sister Ninay owned the company that dad had started. Ninay died a couple of years ago and left her interest to Ann.
There are twenty-five employees in the company. All are offspring of Jake's line. Most are grand-kids and some are great grand-kids. Ann directed me to have the company be held in trust and that the eldest five employees, "who shall also be of Jake's line" are to be the board. And so that is what I am doing with the company.
There is also a proviso in Mother's will that 'Aunts' Muriel and Venus, are to receive survivor's benefits from the company. I had no idea who Muriel was! The will said that they are the only living "wives" of my father. Now I know why I had never heard the name Muriel before! We all call her Pan! They are quite old now and are in a nursing facility. I remember years ago having an argument with my wife why anyone would ever name a child Pandora. Now at long last I know the answer. I think I will break Father's directions and tell my wife! Won't she be surprised?
I am no spring chicken! I am seventy-three and a retired lawyer.
Father, Aunt Ganda and Aunt Krissell lived their last years in the Philippines in a place called Polomolok. There is a family farm there now that is set up as a cooperative for Aunt Ganda's relatives. I have visited it and was treated as visiting royalty, being Jake's son.
I have no comment on the content of the journal, but once Muriel and Venus pass away, I will follow Father's desire that it be made available to all his descendents. That will make for some very interesting dinner table conversations.
Oh, one other thing. I went to see Aunt Pan. I told her about the journal I had found. I asked her why she wanted Dad as her husband. Her answer is, He was pogi! (giggle!)
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The End
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