Epilogue
Mothers and Daughters
My name is Bella and I am thirteen years old. My father is Jake and my room is pink!
I finished reading what you have read. It's weird how it just stops there. There. My head has not popped out yet! I am about to make my first appearance in this world thirteen years ago. She stops.
I found Mom's diary by accident and read the whole thing. I couldn't stop! Holy crap, I am having a hard time thinking of my mother as she describes herself, like when they were saying goodbye to Tita Nic2x in Mindanao that first time! Wow. That was my mother, father, Lola [grandmother,] and Tita Nic2x! I started rubbing myself just reading it! I never read anything like that before.
I can't believe Mom stopped her diary where she did. The diary is lying on my bed. My skirt is hiked up. My panties are wet. Mom walks into the room.
There's no hiding it now. So, this is not the time to go on defense, this is the time to ... ask her why. After she turns white, then red, and then, I swear, blue, (hehehe she is a US citizen now of course,) she breathes again, and sits down hard on the bed by my side and hugs me.
She is still hugging me.
Did you read it all?
All.
Oh Bella ... Well... [Mom picks up the diary shakes her head as in disbelief or maybe amazement and looks intently at the spine as if there is something magical there] ... I suspect that you have some questions.
I have not tried to pull my skirt down. Considering what I just read, what would be the point in that effort?
I already did ask you, Mom. Why did you stop writing, right when you did?
Because when you arrived, everything, everything in my world was complete. You were the completion of the Package Deal in a way that completed me, completed us, and completed my connection with your father. You, sweet Bella, exist because I needed to give your father a beautiful daughter. And that's exactly what you are.
But you didn't finish.
You finished it by being you! If you want the diary finished, you finish it.
I can't. There is too much that happened when I was real young.
OK, so ask me, ask Lola, ask Tita Nic2x, Tita Rose and Tita Lily, and you can write it all down.
Why do I have to do it?
You don't have to. But if you want it extended then you should be the one to do it. I don't need it. You are my completion.
What happened to Lena?
She moved to New York when you were six. She had gotten her green card at that point. She wanted to marry her 'slave' and she couldn't do that here. We get greeting cards from her every Christmas.
Did Dad say he required you to have me to complete the deal? That wasn't in the diary.
No, child, that was all in my head. I needed it to feel complete with your Dad. Once you were in our arms, there was a sense of completeness that I cannot give proper words to, for you. You were the very first daughter that Jake raised. He had a daughter long before he met me, but he had not raised her and had only met her when she was in her thirties. You were his real first. Lola gave him Abe – the son and I gave you to him. We were all in heaven. Of course, Lola and I each had two more babies and your aunts had theirs: your sisters and brothers, the eleven of you in all, are a joy, but Abe and you were the first ones. We love all of you. But the role you played in my life is special.
You were my age when you became Dad's wife. Outside of this family, I don't know anyone else like that. Am I supposed to find my husband now? When is my Cherry Busting ceremony supposed to happen?
No. No one expects you to do anything like what your aunts and I did. There will be no Cherry Busting ceremony. We made a deal, with Jake and with ourselves. It was about taking control of our lives and getting to somewhere, where we could be in control. ... The contradiction was that to take control, we had to give up all control to Jake. You, or others, might call it a devil's bargain. It would surely have been a devil's bargain if the guy had not been your father. He was the saving grace of it all. Yes, we gave our bodies to him, but he did not take our souls. He left them intact and urged us to further our education and find a life for ourselves after he died. He even accepted that some of us would leave him before he died. He never really required us to stay. There was no blackmail, no gray mail, no coercion of any type, by him. Any of us could go.
Of course, if we left before we had the green cards, we might have had to return to the Philippines and for us, to do so without that green card was not acceptable. So, there was pressure, but not from Jake. Once we had lived with him for a while, it was hard to leave because there was real love. I really shouldn't speak for all of us, but it is true. We all do love your father. That is why we stay. ... But you sweet Bella, you are one of the wonderful presents we get from that bargain. You are an American. You don't have to make any deals to obtain true freedom to be who you want to be and where you want to be. I am not sure you will ever appreciate that gift, but it is a big thing. Our experience was unique and you will not need to replicate it.
It has been twenty-one years since you came to the USA. Dad is eighty now. I know you laugh and say, a spry eighty, but he is a very old man. I don't know if he will live long enough to see me graduate high school. What will you do when he dies? You are only thirty-two.
I will live with your titas and Lola. Your titas and I have loved each other and been with each other for sixteen years. They are my age and we will do fine. Lola and I are closer than I can explain to you, but I guess you read those parts in my diary and so you already know that.
Jake has never tried to have sex with me, not that I want him to, but is it because he is too old, or am I not pretty enough?
Oh child, maybe he is too old, but he has all he can handle from your Lola, from your titas and from me! As for how pretty you are, you know you have heard your father say how pretty he thinks you are. Jake does not lie. If your father didn't think you were pretty, he would not say that.
Abe says he wants to be like Jake.
Well, Abe has some growing to do, but he might be able to do that at some point in his life.
Is there a way I could have a Jake type life?
Huh? I am not sure I understand you child. You mean with one husband and many wives?
I mean find a guy to be like Jake is to you, and have other wives around me.
Why would you want to do that?
Because being with a man alone without sister wives around is something I don't think I could ever really get used to. My world is one of women. You all make the decisions. Jake really doesn't.
Huh. Well, you would be surprised because Jake really has the final say around here. It's just that we know how Jake wants things. After all these years with him, we know him very well. He doesn't have to say much anymore, but child, things are done his way.
I guess I need to think more about that. When I get old enough, will you help me figure all that out? I still think I need to be surrounded by women, even though I do want a husband. And if my Cherry Busting is far off, what am I supposed to do with these feelings I have? [giggle] I am your daughter, you know!
Oh child ... let me think about it too. I think I also need to talk with Jake, Lola, and your titas. This is something Jake would call an unintended consequence of the Package Deal!
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The End
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