Ever Summer

Episode 15

Chapter  Fifteen

Life was hard in  La Union, a province far north of Metro Manila  where Aida brought Soraya and Ricky to  the  house of her relatives.   The house was located in  a remote township in the province where  people  were mostly farmers, planters of rice and corn.  Their  only source of contact to the outside world was a small transistor radio. But this too was useless `because all mainstream communication  was under government control.     But through trickles of news from the underground sources, the have at least  an idea about the horrors suffered by those considered as “enemy of the state.”

Ricky and Aida worked in the fields  together with Aida’s  folks.  By early evening all lights were out.  Sometimes they could hear gun shots.  They were also witnessed to sporadic skirmishes between the government troopers and the rebels.

Soraya   stayed inside the house  most of the time. Her time to give birth is near.  She tried to be strong, to get by and move on with her life after leaving Manila.  

But the look in her best friend’s face was breaking Aida’s heart. She knew,  she felt the pain  in Soraya’s heart.  Knowing  Soraya’s her long  moments of silence, her sad smile, her blank stare.  Her  stifled cry deep into the night.

Soraya gave birth to a still born child.  The child, a girl, did not survive Soraya’s long and hard labor, aided only by Aida and a local “midwife”  who came late due to her distant location.

 The experience  left Soraya  damaged and devastated.  She was told she could never  bear a child again.   

Three months later,  they left La Union. Their  situation  was becoming precarious  with the increasing deployment of military personnel in the area.

They settled n Bicol  province, in Southern Luzon , in the small  farm of  Aida’s  maternal folks. 

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