A matter of fate

Bel, when did you realize Grace was a wife to me?

When she started having breakfasts with you.

That early?

Yes. I knew before you did, didn't I?

Huh, I guess so. But you were having lunch with her each day!

Sure! I decided, better be friends with your other wife. There was no way to stop it. So I accept it.

So what do we do now?

What do you mean? We continue. Our school is growing out of a nursery into a real school. We have decided to add grades K1 through grade 6, one grade a year. I am working with DepEd on this. We will be hiring teachers for the next school year. We add one year at a time as the kids we have get older. I will be very busy for years to come. Maybe we will have a high school before we are complete! Kaysi is running the business office with help from Lailani. Mary and Ivy are the building and grounds managers. We have found a two hectare plot to put the school on. I am working with the bank to secure a mortgage. Ray, this is a very big project! You may not see me for days sometimes! I will have to go to Manila many times. We are married and I love you. But it is good that you have Grace because I will not be here for you.

And you will still run it as a shelter?

Of course! We will have a separate building on the grounds for battered women.

Bel, you are leaving me with Grace, Miafe and four underage girls. Do you really think this is a good idea?

Why? You afraid they fuck you to death? Hehe!

Jesus, Bel! This is serious!

Yes, I sorry. I know, but many men be happy if a wife do this. Di ba?

Yes, I guess so.

Ray, the school will have a small apartment for me. There will be times when we are busy that I will be staying there.

Is our marriage over?

Silly! Of course not! You're my man, Ray! I just be busy sometimes. Like now, I have a meeting at the bank. Ray, I go now. OK. We talk more later?

OK, later, Bel.

I think I need a drink, but I don't really drink that much and it is too early in the day... and oh hell, I guess I'll have a glass of water.

I am pouring the glass, as Miafe walks into the room. She has a pretty, and pretty see-through, top on, over a skin colored bra. Her skirt is so short, it defies being even called a skirt. She is barefoot and while I assume she has panties on, there's nothing else on her. Her straight hair is black without the brown that some of the others are getting at the beauty parlor. She has minimal makeup on primarily because she just doesn't need any. Her nails are painted a variety of colors. One nail is blue, another green, and another blood red.

She slides up next to me, her hip touching my thigh, an arm on my shoulder. Asawa, I want a ring, and Grace needs one too. We need the world to know, we are married. I don't want men coming up to me. And if they do, I want to flash my ring in their face and say, 'Taken!'

I see. Are these two rings to be the same?

No! We pick our own, with you of course! I don't want a ring that Tita Grace will like, bobo¹.

Are you going to wave it under the noses of the others in this house?

No! That would be rude. I am not rude!

How do you think Lailani will feel about it? How about Mayari or Masaya?

Lailani need one too, but the others, they will understand.

Miafe, I am not sure they will.

But they not your wives, Ray. Me and Tita Grace, your wives.

Yes, that's true. But all are mine, wives or not. And all will say they need the same protection, as you do when you go out. If you get a ring, they will want one too and maybe you should all have one. Both Tita Grace and Anabel say that all of you are mine forever. I think you are all crazy, but if you are all mine, then I guess maybe you all need the same 'protection.'

But I want something special as your wife!

Miafe, you have it. You have my love. You have Anabel's acceptance of you as my wife. The others do not have that.

Anabel? She say I am your wife? Wow! OK. It OK if I say that to her?

Yes, Miafe. I think you should. I think you should talk to Anabel about being a wife.

And she not be mad with me?

She will not be angry with you. She knows. It's OK. Really.

Thanks! Miafe kisses and hugs me, in a way that seems more childlike than wifely. Oh what has happened to me? After a bit more canoodling Miafe plants one more kiss in a very wifely fashion on my lips and dashes away to handle some pressing matter which is completely unknown to me.

Once again the house is devoid of all but me. Grace has gone shopping. She will return in a few hours. But today I am not edgy. In fact, I am calm. The talk I had with Anabel this morning, which followed the events of last night, have brought clarity and maybe some stability that I was missing before. No more of this confusing game we were playing. Anabel is my putative wife outside the home, but my real wife is Grace. Yes, Miafe sees herself as a wife and she may in time grow into a real one, but for now, it is Grace and only Grace. For some reason, that is working out for me. I love Anabel, but as corny as it seems, sometimes, love means letting go. In this case, I need to let go so Anabel can follow her desires to help women. That it ballooned into this damned school thing is just one of those weird results the world throws at you. This shelter is what Anabel deeply wants, no needs, to provide, and I would be a fool to stand in her way. Grace has provided her a 'graceful' way to exit the marriage without having to leave legally.

Who knows, maybe she will return to me. Maybe once she has gotten all these things running and self-sustaining, she will think she can resign from the front lines. I don't know and I would bet that Anabel doesn't know either. If she does return, Grace will not stand in her way. That's the fascinating thing about Grace.

Anyway, as I was saying, I am relaxed. The other day I was out in the tool shed, or bang-house as it is called here. I haven't messed around in there for a few years. But I have a bunch of wood working tools, and stacks of wood: Narra, Mahogany, Bagras, Tugas, Teak and Rosewood. I had plans to make some furniture; plans that seem to have fallen into a pipe dream as I have not returned to the projects for a very long time. Now, for some reason, I feel the need to start working some wood into an object of use and beauty. And so, with a sense of peace settling my heart, I saunter out to see what the wood will say to my hands when I hold it.

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It's amazing how time slips by when I am concentrating on building something. I decided to do something relatively simple, to get back in the groove. I had a nice block of rosewood, I had forgotten about until I was rummaging around. I decided to make two wall sconces from it. First I use my band saw and trim off corners. Then I set the block on my lathe, and proceed to round the block on the vertical surface. Next, I work the “inside” with my lathe and make a bowl. Once the walls of the bowl are as thin as I want them, I remove it from the lathe and return to the band saw, cutting the bowl in two. I am working at sanding my sconces before applying oil to them, to bring out the luster of the rosewood when Grace pokes her head into the shop to ask if I am ever going to come in for supper. She points out that I never stopped for lunch and it is already 7:30 at night. I'll be damned. It has been a good day.

Walking back to the house, Grace asks me how my talk with Anabel went this morning.

You had lunch with her didn't you?

Yes.

Well, what did she tell you?

She say, ask you.

Oh Grace, she said more than that! What did she say?

Why you ask me that?

Grace! You ask me what she told me. Well, girl, what did she tell you?

She say she depend on me to take care of you and be good to you. She say if I have problem, to come to her. She say, she will come back to you later. But she say I will not have to go. Now, what she tell you?

I will tell you what she told me even though these where not her exact words. They were her meaning. She has known for a long time that you are my wife. She says, she decided to make friends with you and be a wife too, or she would lose me to you. She is happy for me to have you and she likes and trusts you. She says she will be gone a great deal for a long time. She does not know how long. Her school is getting bigger and bigger.

So, Ray, you mine now, diba?

Yes, Grace, I am your husband, just like you dreamed.

Good, but I not tell you all my dream.

OK, Grace, what did you not tell me.

Years ago, I dream of a man who will be the man for me and my nieces. Ray, you not know this. Lailani and Miafe, they orphans. Their parents gunned down because of a fight about some land. I see this murder in my dream. I go get the girls, because in my dream, they dead if I not get them. But in my dream, I not able to save my sister and her husband. So next morning I go to my sister's house and say, 'let the girls stay with me this week. I am lonely.' My sister allow this and I bring the girls to my parent's house. That day, my sister and her husband, they killed. … The people who kill them, they take our land and we now poor. But I take care of my nieces. … Then I have another dream. The dream tells me to send Lailani away to search for a man. If she find the right one, she bring him to us. He will be our man and we will be his, all three of us, for as long as we all live. I was young teenager when I take the girls. As soon as I have this dream, I know I not let any man touch me until Lailani grow up and find a man for us. I make sure Miafe also not allow a man to touch her. Everyone where we live think I am crazy. My parents die but I still not take a man. But I do this. I know Lailani find you and bring you and save us. You do this. We all your wives. Lailani too. She know I tell you this today. We talk after I talk with Ate Bel. She know I tell you the real story. She sorry she hide this from you. But I tell her she must not tell you or maybe you not come to us. She afraid today that you will be angry with her. I tell her that you will not be angry. I am right, di ba? You know what else? In my dream you love to make things from wood! I never see you do this until today! See? My dream is a true thing.

This is a lot to digest. By the time Grace has finished the tale, I am at the supper table. Sitting there, are Miafe and Lailani. No one else. Lailani hurriedly puts a plate of food in front of me, trying desperately to not drop the plate from her shaking hands. Miafe is just sitting there, holding her breath.

Miafe, did you know about Tita Grace's dream?

Opo.

When did you first hear of it?

I was very young Sir. I do not remember the first time. I always know you would come for us. That is why I am your wife. It is not possible to be a wife to anyone else. We are to be yours.

Lailani, you were the one to give up your virginity to find the right man. Is that what I am hearing?

Yes, Ray. One of us had to do it. Tita tell me, it is to be me to do this. But I only meet bad men. You know this. When I meet you, you are married and I not think it can be you. Then you, and Ate Bel, save me. You make love to me and I do think you show me love. I see Ate Bel allows this and I think, it must be you! The thing with the young girls, that a mistake. I not realize what they do that night until it is too late. Tita Grace teach us to be young virgins. I forget the others, they not do this. Mary and Ivy, they know they here because Grace allows it. They not cause problems like Grace say you think last night. They will be good. They happy to be maids you fuck. They not wives to you.

Lailani, they are more than maids I fuck. They are mothers to my children.

Sorry, sorry. Yes, this is true. I am wrong. But they not the same as us. There was no dream for them. Only us. We are the true ones for you. We are yours. No one can be yours like we are.

OK, I hear you and I guess I understand why you feel the way you feel. Grace, you are telling me that the three of you are one, in the fact that you are all my wives and I cannot separate one of you from the other two. Do I have that right? You are sort of a trinity?

Yes. I think so. I not sure what you mean, trinity.

But you do understand that you have to share me with Anabel. Right?

And now comes a shock as Lailani speaks, No, Ray, she is too busy and she will be busy for the rest of her life. Tita Grace not tell you everything. Tita have another dream when she get here. Her dream is Ate Bel is president of a college. We started with the nursery. Now we add grade school. Later we add high school. Then we will add the college. She will be 'busy' for the next twenty-five years. We make sure of this. I tell her to use the shelter for apartments for herself and Kaysi, because they need to be there so much. This will happen in a week or two, baka². In Tita's dream, Ate never come back to you. She love you and respect you but lives like a nun for the rest of her life. She trades this role with Tita Grace! Before Tita Grace is the Nun! You are friends with her, but no more than that. She has no more children even though she say she want that. She never finds the time! I make sure of that. That why I work at the school. I am the one who keeps things going that way.

What if I go to Anabel and tell her what you are doing?

You won't, Ray. We already know this. We know you love Anabel too much to hurt her by telling her. She is happier than she has been in years. You know this. So you will not tell her. Also, you love Grace very much. If you tell Anabel, you hurt both Anabel and Grace. I think you love me too, Ray.

OK, you have gotten Anabel, my wife!, out of your way. Do you have plans to get Mary and Ivy out of the way too?

This time it is Miafe who drops the news, This not a problem. They also very busy with the school. They get good paying jobs there. They will be very busy as the school grows. So they not leave you, but they not here most of the time. We give them apartments at the school, because they need to be there so much! They keep their kids with them in the apartment rooms. So they not here much.

I look at Lailani, And Kaysi? Is she too busy with the school to?

Yes, of course. She loves you and Ate Bel, but she very much wants to help women who get hit. So she is busy with that. She loves you but not need you!

So, Grace, it's just you three and the young ones?

Yes. That is true.

Do you have any idea what I am about to say?

No, Ray. I scared you are angry. I think maybe I make a mistake in telling you.

Grace, this is maybe the best news I have had in a very, very long time! I can live with the three of you far easier than seven of you. But what do we do with the young ones?

No choice. They are yours. But Mahal³, there is one more thing.

And that is?

In my dream, I give you four children. Lailani give you four and Miafe give you six. You do have a tribe, Ray. This is seen, and it will be.

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Chapter 20