Moondogs - Alexander Yates [165]
“What are you talking about?” she cut him off. “I mean, what are you even saying? I have a life. I have a husband and I have children.”
He stared at her for a moment, eyes darting about as he tried to get his bearings. “I have a life, too,” he said. “And I share it with people that I love, but who will never know me the way that you do. Just like no one will ever know you the way …” he trailed off here, sensing this was a losing tack. “This is what you came back to the Philippines for. Tell yourself it was to find home, or whatever, but you came here because you didn’t fit in—”
She cut him off again, her voice not forgiving in the least: “Are you for real? You have no idea why I came back. And if you actually think I’m going to stay with you, then you don’t know half of what you think you do about me.”
Reynato reared up in bed, the hope in his face eroding. “Half is a lot, bruha.”
“God, enough with the bruha crap.” She waved him off. “What are you, five? Is this all just a game to you?”
Reynato laughed and winced and grabbed at his stitches. When he looked back up his expression had completely closed. “Everything is a game to me,” he said, his voice irritatingly high. “Why should you be any different?” He spoke slowly, almost sadly, as though inviting her to seek a promised undercurrent of ironic poignancy. But it wasn’t poignant—it was just a truism. With Reynato, face value was the only value. Monique felt drenched in revulsion like sea spray.
“Leave me alone,” she said, humiliated by how much she’d let this aging infant hurt her. “Don’t ever speak to me again.” She took a step backward. “You stay away from me and my family, or I’ll knock your goddamn house down.”
“Oh my goodness. A whole new Monique.” He laughed again and put his hands in the air like he was being held up. “I’m terrified.” Sarcasm—but she could tell by the tinny ring to his laugh that he really was.
A FEW DAYS LATER Howard died, and a few days after that Joseph came back. The proximity of those events would trouble Monique for years. Howard passing away in the predawn quiet. Joseph, without any kind of announcement, leaving the kids with his sister and returning to Manila early. Howard’s funeral on a patch of scrub overlooking a choppy strait. Joseph home, his bags already unpacked, fresh Baguio roses splayed loose over his wilted lap, their leaves and thorns, as well as a few droplets of his own blood, plastered to the bottom of the kitchen sink. She had the odd feeling that these events were mutually conditional. As though if she was to be thankful for one then she must be thankful for them both.
She didn’t wake Joseph when she first found him. His worn loafers were propped up on the coffee table and his hands were folded over the roses, making his fingers look like pale wicker. He was still in his traveling clothes—his passport still in his shirt pocket. He stank just a little.
There was no big, warm, enveloping hug when he finally woke up. He pressed his closed mouth to her closed mouth and they started on dinner. The freezer was still full of Amartina’s food, and they picked a pair of chops she’d bought at the Cavite market; rubbery white rims of skin and fat still hugging the lean. They defrosted the chops, dredged them in flour and fried them in corn oil. Joseph spread paper towels over a serving platter and as Monique took the dripping chops out of the pan she realized how long it had been since they’d cooked together. She remembered their first apartment in Columbia Heights, one elbow against the wall as she tended a half-size with electric burners. Joseph did prep on the other side of the kitchen. It was so small he could get at the stove, sink and fridge just by shifting his weight.
They ate in silence. Joseph meticulously sliced open a calamansi fruit and sprinkled the sour juice onto his pork. Some round green seeds came out as well and he used the tip of his knife to roll them, one by one, to the rim of his plate. He finally asked where Amartina was—it was