Soul

Author's note: This chapter is NOT a stand-alone...The story starts here.

The game’s the thing.

There are times when the only sane thing to do, is to have a good brandy. Yes, you know your world is about to get kicked a good bit sideways and, no, you aren’t looking forward to it, but there is no way around it. And that is exactly when it is time for a brandy.

Am I ready to see a living, breathing Joana? No.

Did I have any idea that Francine could be that living, breathing Joana? No.

Do I doubt Erlyn and Aina’s judgments on the matter? No.

Time for a brandy.

Aina doesn’t drink. Joana didn’t drink. The old Aina sure as heck, didn’t drink. Drinking alone right now seems like something I ought not to be doing. But Aina is here, giving me emotional support and sipping on a hot Milo.

We had to do it. Imagine what would have happened if she saw it for the first time as she looked at Joana in the casket.

Yes, OK, I get it. I am not complaining.

I know. You aren’t even complaining silently. Still, it is hurting you.

Yes. That is true.

It is also true that you love Francine. You always have. Why don’t you tell her?

Aina…

What? Stay out of it? How? We are bound together. You know that. I cannot be separate from you. It is not possible. So, Hun, why don’t you tell her?

It won’t change anything for her.

How can you even think that? Tell your daughter!

OK, OK. I will tell her.

Tell me what, Dad? She is standing behind me. I turn around to tell my daughter that I love her, but my daughter is not here. Joana is standing six inches from my face. Joana, I was going to tell our daughter I have always loved her. But you always knew I would from the moment we knew you were pregnant.

From six inches there are no inches. Arms encircle me. Tears wet my cheeks. In my head, Aina is telling me I could not have done better.

They were right. Francine is Joana in the flesh. How did I not see it? Are the eyes of a father so keen to deceive?

It takes a bit, but eventually we regain twelve inches of distance between each other. Yes, the hair is parted differently. That is about it.

Francine, I think you better comb your hair back the other way, otherwise I am going to have a hard time not thinking of you as Joana.

What if I don’t want to?

Aina, would you please go into my daughters head and give her a picture of me wanting to have sex with my wife?

A little graphic, big guy?

Maybe not graphic enough if it doesn’t work!

Francine, allow Aina to explain why.

There is a pause. I can see that Aina is doing something. Francine is clearly experiencing something, and then Oh! Oh fuck! Dad! Dad, you wouldn’t!

Change back or I might.

I’ll think about it. Aina, was that to scare me, or did Dad really think that.

Both.

Can you put some of my Mom’s feelings and thoughts in my head?

Some. Why?

Will I be disappointed about how she felt about Dad?

No, she loved him for real. But you don’t want to feel her passion. That is exactly what your Dad does not want you to feel.

Why?

Are you playing stupid on purpose? You know well enough. If you, through your Mother’s feelings, want Master to make love with you, what is there to stop wanting it from happening?

But he loves her still and still wants her, right?

Yes.

And I can be her?

Physically yes. But you are his daughter.

I have always been the replacement for my Mother in his eyes. You think I don’t know this? Maybe I need to take on the role completely.

Hey! I am right in front of you. Why are you talking about me as if I was not here or unable to hear you? No, Francine, you are not a stand-in for your mother. I love you as Francine, not a stand-in for Joana.

OK, sure partially, Dad, but not completely.

Bullshit. Francine, I love you as my daughter and I want to see you as my daughter. By looking exactly like your mother, you are doing weird things to my heart. I grab my brandy and start walking back to my private library.

Dad, did you hide things from Mom, like you hide them from me?

I stop, frustrated to all get out, and turn around.

Yes, some. There is no option. There are things that cannot be explained. There are things that should not be explained.

But Aina knows?

Yes, I gather she does.

So if she knows, why can’t I know?

Because, Daughter of Mine, you are not in my head, knowing everything I think or do, including taking a crap, twenty-four hours a day. Because your mother was in constant extreme misery for your entire life, every moment of her existence and it was in those moments she learned, I suspect, what this Aina now knows. I would never have allowed your mother to suffer like that if I had known what was happening to her. So no, there is no way I can show you what you want. If I tried to do so, I might kill you, or drive you mad. I have done enough harm to your mother. I will not do it to you.

As I turn back again and walk toward the library, I say to Aina, I will sleep alone tonight. Make sure all know this.

Don’t you want some supper?

No. Not hungry.

Not even brandy can solve all problems.

I need a distraction and decide to look at how that church, the one with the kids making false claims, is doing. I move over into my work area. If the church was a commercial enterprise, what it was doing would be in violation of the Consumer Act of the Philippines (Republic Act No. 7394) Article 110. But there is no law about what a church can do, as all churches are built on lies as an ‘a priori’ concept. Still, the church has stopped the crap they were engaged in. So, all is well and good on that front.

I look at Amelae’s mom’s medical status and all looks OK with that. The TB is in remission and the diabetes, while progressing, is still manageable.

The drug matters that Erlyn was tangentially connected to, has simply slipped out of the consciousness of those who are so engaged.

Mirafe’s mom and dad have been kicked off the land they had been farming. For them, it’s a mess now, but there is nothing requiring Mirafe’s involvement.

No one, and I do mean not a single person seems to be looking for Aina. It’s like she never existed. The church swallowed her up some years ago and all others lost touch with her. When the church lost her, no one else even noticed. It is truly amazing how a life can disappear unnoticed.

I ask Aina for updates on the statues. The bishops and archbishop in the Philippines have all been moved to a church facility on Cebu. It seems they share the same room but not a one of them can know that. All outside sensory input has been lost to them. They live inside their own minds and for three of them, those minds have become completely mad. But what does it matter if they are insane? No one will ever know.

Also going slowly mad is the local bishop from what Aina reports.

There is a delegation at my work area door. Three of them, Amelae, Mirafe and Erlyn stand there, patiently. If I had not turned around, I do not know how long they would have just waited. I knew to turn around because a voice in my head told me to do so. Am I running things now or is it Aina?

We do this together, Hun.

And no idle thought goes unanswered?

Seems so. Now talk to them.

To what do I owe this gathering?

Mirafe speaks for them. Do you need us to leave now?

Why do you ask?

Aina tell us no one is with you tonight. Why that?

I told you earlier that we would not do this while Francine is here.

Francine not care. She knows what happens here.

You spoke with her about this after she learned her mother’s body is lying at a mortuary and we will bury her mother this week?

Well…

Did you?

No. We speak about it before. I sure she OK with it.

I am not and I do not know how to resolve it.

Master, you know. Ask Aina to look in Francine’s mind.

I don’t want to do that.

Why?

Yes, why?

I don’t want to know what my daughter thinks about my sexual activities. That’s why.

You scared what you will learn?

Maybe. What father would ever want to know such things?

Maybe a father who sees his wife in his daughter!

Maybe Marife, maybe.

Maybe you want us to go so you can be with your daughter!

Is that what you really think?

We don’t know. I think your daughter wonders what it would be like to be with you.

She has asked you this?

Yes.

Aina, did my sending the girls away, give Francine the idea that I might want her in my bed?

Yes.

OK girls, join me tonight. You three and Aina.

Good, now come eat. We keep your plate on the table. Come na.

I rejoin them in the dining room, only to see Francine with her hair still combed as Joana combed it. I swear, I haven’t seen this visage for close to seveteen years.

She sits across from me with an expression of complete and profound irritation. I have seen that look before, but not on Francine’s face. No, it was on Joana’s face. I remember the fights we had that produced it. If I loved her so deeply, why did I keep things from her? Why was I so hostile to her going to church? No, she didn’t believe it, but it was the expected thing to do. Why did I hate clergy? How did I know so many languages? Why did I not trust her doctors? Why didn’t I seem to trust anyone?

Yes, I kept things back from Joana. There was no way to explain them to her. I loved her deeply. She cared for me in a way that defied understanding. And that is all that seemed to matter to her, so why was I not open to her?

She was magnificently beautiful and yet that didn’t seem to register in her mind. It wasn’t important.

I see all of that now, facing me as I eat some very nice poached pangasius with butter and seasonings served, as usual, over a bed of white rice. Erlyn has poured a beer for me.

I know enough of the look I am getting, that Francine is waiting on me to give her permission to ‘unload’ whatever she is chewing on, on me.

OK, let’s have it.

Why are you being weird?

Me? I am being weird? How?

You look at me like I am toxic.

Well, OK, let’s start with that. You are not appearing as my daughter, who I have known for her entire life, and love now as much as I did the day she was born. You are appearing before me as a doppelganger of my dead wife. And that has me freaked out.

Why does it freak you out?

My feelings for my wife are not the same as my feelings for my daughter. I find it very confusing.

But all my life, you always told me, my presence reminded you of her.

It has, but not in the way I think you mean now. You were the proof of that love we had. You were what remained of that love. To have you, meant I never had to lose the memory of that. It was a present each and every day. You, Francine are not like your mother in your emotions, or your intellect, or your choices. You are special and unique. Uniquely Francine. Joana would have been immensely proud of you, but I suspect she would have told you, you have my sense of humor. She never really got the concept of irony. You have that down cold. I don’t want to lose the connection I have with my daughter for a false connection, an ephemeral fantasy of my dead wife.

I am having a fantasy of knowing the man who loved my mother. I know you as Dad, but not the other. Is that wrong?

No, it is not. In truth nothing is ever really wrong if all consent. You know that.

So why can’t I experience that?

Because it will change us forever and I don’t want to lose what we have.

Will you at least think about it?

OK, that is a reasonable request. Yes, I will think about it. Now, will you please stop looking like Joana?

Maybe later, but not yet. I am just now getting to know my Mom. Aina has been giving me glimpses. She calls them safe glimpses. Ones you would approve of.

Huh. Well, I have no control over Aina as you will figure out if you haven’t already.

Ummm, yes, I figured that out. I think she is good for you. So, why do you bed the others. Aina is your real wife now.

That is hard to explain. I am not trying to hide anything. It’s just that our connection allows for the others and I think Aina would be as opposed to pushing the others out as I am.

True.

I hear you will be with them tonight. Is that a message to me, to stay away from your bed?

If you were considering crawling into it, it would be. I hope that thought has not crossed your mind.

Very diplomatic!

Very diplomatic, Dad.

Uh-huh. Did you tell the girls how nice the house looks?

No, why?

Because they spent an entire day cleaning every little nook and corner in preparation of your arrival.

Oh, shit! OK, I had better make amends now. Thanks for that.

Done with supper, I push my chair back, gather up the dishes and carry them to a sink. I will spend some time reading before retiring. I don’t need or want sexual contact. The girls are welcome in my bed, but that does not assure any action is forthcoming. I just need time to integrate all I have heard and seen today.

How do you know it will forever change your feelings for Francine?

How could it not?

Well, consider that our feelings change over time as we and those around us age anyway. Children become adults. Adults form relationships with others, modifying how we interact with them. How do you know that your relationship as you have had it, hasn’t already changed forever and profoundly? It was a nice speech, but, Hun, is it true?

Are you telling me to screw my daughter?

No, but I am not saying you shouldn’t. You are the one who always points out that there is no such thing as sin. We can do whatever we want. Why can’t you? Why can’t Francine?

You do know what I am thinking right now, right?

That your life would be far simpler if you had just let Joana and Aina die? Yes, I know what you were thinking. And you are right. But you are happy I am alive. You are also, for the first time in millennia, not so alone. So suck it up big fella. You have four of us in bed tonight and if you think there won’t be any sex, you are sorely misinformed. In fact, I am going to use what we did earlier on those three. They will be in an endless feedback loop between just the three of them. This is going to be fun!

Fun? It sounds like I am going to have three freaked out girls on my hands. And yes, I am not alone, but while you are in my head, I am not in yours. Not exactly equal.

You escaped, to the game board, because you didn’t want to be in the heads of all the others! So what are you complaining about?

You… you were in their heads for all those years? All of them?

Yes, Hun. All of them.

But they weren’t in yours? Oh, they couldn’t be!

So it seems.

So you know, everything…

I think so.

You,… Joana created you out of that place! It is how she protected herself. You were her golem, her shield. It is how she survived.

Yes.

Now, finally I understand. You were Joana’s golem and now you are mine. As part of me as was Joana.

Yes. Joana’s love for you is inside me. As I was her protector, I am your partner now.

You are aware that by following Joana into Aina’s body, you signed your own death warrant. You can never leave Aina’s mortal shell.

Yes, I know, and it is only right. Let’s give your son some real problems, Hun. Christianity isn’t the only playground we can mess up for him.

Yes but I do not want to touch off a holy war. If that didn’t matter to me, I could have probably torn the whole place apart long ago. These humans are too precious. They may frequently be silly and wrong, but they are special and not to be treated harshly.

The others do not agree with you.

I know.

They think this obsession of yours is a waste of time.

I know. What do you think?

I think that they are cruel, mean, and missing the thing you find so special among these humans. I think that Joana is the very essence of what they will never, in their eternal existence, be able to comprehend. Hun, what I don’t understand is, how were you able to see it?

It was an accident. I decided to see how it looked from the actual game board.

Another Joana?

Yes, in a way. I could not understand it at first. I was just playing along. It was a game… why not play along. But she wasn’t playing a game. And finally, I couldn’t either.

Chapter 24