Prologue
I have known her since she was a babe-in-arms. By the time she was five, she would walk from her Lola’s1 home to the market with me.
When she was eight, she came down with her first bout of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever. It was so bad, the platelet count fell so low, that multiple transfusions were required to keep her alive. I paid for that blood. She is my niece and I’d be damned if I would allow her to die because I had been too cheap.
She had been a self-assured skinny little snip of a thing. Now at ten years of age she is still a skinny imp but there was something else appearing in her face, stature, and demeanor. She is becoming a young lady.
Her breasts had yet to develop, but the outlines of a young adult had formed. She would be a lovely one. She already was lovely.
Her name is Noime and you pronounce that noy-Me.
I was sixty-six and I had a crush on Noime. I would fantasize about her as I fucked my incredibly beautiful thirty-five year-old wife. That makes no sense, but it is the truth.
Noime lived with her mother, father, brothers and sisters about half a KM from here along Arradaza Street. Her parents are good people. Though poor, they get food on the table, kept the clothes clean, and manage to send five kids to school every day. Noime's mother is a sister to my wife. I see the mother and kids often. Noime's father works very hard and I see him less often as the years progress.
What I am about to tell you, started in the middle of the Rainy Season. For those of you who don’t know about the climate of the Philippines, a bit of digression is in order. The Philippines, at least the part I live in, is within the tropical zone, only seven degrees north of the equator.
Summer: The pain-in-the-ass know-it-alls from temperate climate, who have never been here will say things like, “there is no such thing as summer there!” But in fact there are seasons here. In the period of the year when it is hottest and driest, between March and June, we have ‘summer.’ That’s when we have summer break for schools… between March and June.
Rainy Season: Immediately following ‘summer’ is the start of the Rainy Season. It starts in June and runs through October. If you check this out on Wikipedia they end the rainy season at the end of September. That is wrong. It continues through October. You can prove that to yourself by just checking the number of Typhoons that ravage the Islands in that month. The months of mid-July through most of October are the coolest of the rainy season as the sun is to the North of us until September and the rain with the overcast skies helps reduce the temps further. Daytime temps can be in the 70’s or low 80’s if you use Fahrenheit as your scale. Of course in Celsius it is from 25 to 28. From November through May is the Dry season. According to Wikipedia the coolest time of the year in the Philippines is in December … BUT not in “Gensan,” (more formally called General Santos City,) where I live. December may be coolest in Manila, at thirteen degrees north of the equator, but here December can be very HOT compared with July through October.
Another thing you need to know is that Dengue fever is carried by mosquitoes. The fact that things are dry seven months of the year here, means that there is a five month mosquito season that coincides with the rainy season. Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, the nasty version of the illness, is a killer. It attacks the blood and drops the platelet count until the sufferer starts bleeding throughout the body and blood pressure drops. Treatment runs from a simple dexterous solution drip to blood transfusions. The illness can kill, even if treated.
Noime’s family home had no screens, at least none that would keep anything out. This was normal, as was the open windows. Living with mosquitoes is, for the poor, a way of life. On any given day in the rainy season, the hospitals are filled with children and the aged struggling with the fever.
And so it was this July, in the middle of the rainy season, when my niece was admitted, with the illness, for the second time in her young life, to the first, second, or third best hospital in the City, (depending on whom you ask,) Doctor’s Hospital.
To say that I was a little ticked that Noime was stricken again, is an understatement. All it takes is a fucking oscillating fan to ward off mosquitoes. Why in God’s name did they not use that at home? Noime had almost died the first time and here we were again.
My wife and I spent time at the hospital to bring food to Noime’s mother, who stayed at her daughter’s hospital bedside. The hospital provided food for the patient but not the mother. Rice, pinakbet, adobo, homemade avocado ice pops… all found their way to the hospital.
In the middle of all this, my wife put her foot down. When Noime got discharged, she was to stay with us. To say I agreed with my wife’s decision is to state the obvious. Still, in the beginning I said nothing, other than to let my wife know I was in concurrence.
Initially we got word back that Noime didn’t want this. She had, over the years, gotten a little shy and was embarrassed that her English wasn’t good enough to be around me. So the next time we visited the hospital, in front of Noime’s mother, another of Noime’s aunts and my wife, speaking directly to Noime, I told her that when she got out, she was to live with me. She could visit her mother, and her mother could see her – through me – but from now on, she, Noime, was mine. Not a moment later her mother told Noime that, this is the way it would be. I turned again to Noime, and stroking her hair, said: You are mine now. Not a soul disagreed.
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1 - Lola = grandmother
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