Her Mother's Daughter

Part 2: Unawakening

I opened my eyes to the sound of someone calling my name.

“Eve, wake up,” she said as my eyes fluttered open and adjusted to the afternoon sunlight.

Her large brown eyes lit up at the sight of me. She looked younger than when I last saw her, and her stomach was swollen.

I looked at my hands, and this time, they were the hands of a young teenager.

“You’re pregnant?” I asked her with a dumbstruck expression on my face.

She laughed. “Yes, I am, Eve. Does it not show?” she joked as she sat next to me under the alatiris tree, almost red with ripe fruits aplenty.

“How do you know my name?” I asked her with one eyebrow raised.

“We’ve met before,” she said, smiling and still rubbing her belly. But Ana knew that a somber mood fell on her as if she had just remembered a dark memory. “This isn’t your first journey to my time.”

So I was going back again before this then?

“In your own time, are women expected to marry—?” she began to ask, but hesistated at the end.

“We’re not expected to marry men to survive,” I told her proudly. “I have a house and a job that pays well. I don’t even have to settle with just one man if I don’t want to.”

At this, she gasped, her hand halted on top of her belly. “What if you got pregnant by one of them?”

I remembered where I had been before I went back to this and tried to rubbed my own swollen belly, which was flat in this body.

“We’re given the choice,” I said flatly, grabbing a handful of grass on either side of me.

“To do what?” she asked inquisitively.

“To do whatever we want to do,” I said softly, feeling a slight pang of guilt at the way her tone of voice came out.

“That’s good to hear then,” she said, beginning to rub her belly again. “In this time, I’m not married. I got pregnant by unpleasant means, and I have to keep it.”

“Why?”

“Father at the plaza church said that it was a sin to not want a baby. That all babies were gifts from God,” she said, her voice cracking. “My tias are trying to arrange for me to marry the old man on Crispulo street. He’s rich, and he can provide for me. He can save me and my family from public shame.”

“But what do you want?” I asked her.

She stopped and looked deeply into my eyes. “I think I want to keep my baby, but I don’t want to marry the old man. I don’t think I’d want another man to touch me again.”

I looked away, unable to bear the way her big round eyes bore into me. “Who’s the father anyway?”

“I suppose a soldier. A dayo. I don’t know,” she said bitterly.

“Won’t you feel alone?” I asked her, remembering how alone I felt when John told me that I was the only one who wanted our baby.

“Maybe, but this little one isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I don’t think I’ll be alone as long as she needs her mother,” she said, looking longingly at her belly.

“You’re brave for wanting this child,” I asked her.

“Oh, I didn’t want this child,” she said nonchalantly. “Not at first. I was too young to have a baby. Still am. I’m barely 18.”

“Then why keep it?”

“Women must really be very liberated in your time,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t exactly have a choice, do I? If I don’t follow the social norms, I’d be cast aside onto the streets anyway. So I take what I can. At least I don’t have to kill another life. At least this life inside me will love me unconditionally.”

“Now it’s alive, but what about months ago when it wasn’t human yet, didn’t you have a choice?”

She smiled at me and shook her head as the smile gave way to a frown.

I felt guilty for forcing her to answer. I remembered what my Lola Amor told me just a few moments ago, which made me feel a lot better.

“My Lola Amor always said these words to me when I felt really alone: You are strong. You are brave. You are loved…” I began. She smiled at that.

“Amor is a pretty name,” she said, rubbing her belly. “I’ll name my daughter Amor then.”

“What if it’s a boy?” I asked her.

“I can feel it in my heart that she’s a girl,” she said. “But even if he’s a boy, I would love it just the same. So Amor.”

“But what if she asks who her father is?”

At that Grace stopped to think. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll tell her that I made her on my own. I definitely don’t want her to feel like she was made by violence.”

I closed my eyes when she took my hand in hers and squeezed it.

“Are we related?” she suddenly asked. I opened my eyes to look at her big brown ones. I wasn’t sure if I should tell her, but she didn’t force me to answer. Instead, she smiled as if knowing already the answer to her question. “If I don’t make it, will you tell my daughter that I’ve made my choice? That every decision I made, I made because I love her?”

Tears slid down my face. “Eve, you are strong. You are brave. You are loved…” she said back to me as a heavy weight pulled down at my eyelids.

And then, it was darkness again.

***

“Anak, wake up,” I heard Lola Amor’s voice say. “We’re at the hospital.”

I opened my eyes and the big white lights of the hospital signages blinded me momentarily. The pain in my womb was almost unbearable now, and a shiver ran all over my body. A fuzzy, floozy feeling came to my head, and I felt like I was about to throw up.

A flood of memories came to my mind of the many nights I’ve spent amidst dizzying lights beckoning me to come try out their wares. A different place. A different time. A different me.

As the pain of my past actions come to collect my debt, I relished in the memory of my old power. I was the predator. All those little men on the streets were my prey. I could pick whoever I wanted from the litter. I just have look them in the eyes and pretend to play their stupid manly games. It was easy, really. Oohing and aahing at their fake power over me would get me free drinks. If they’re lucky, I’d let them spend the night with me. I never thought I could be this weak. Now the lights that beckon to me shone a harsh light on my mistake.

Lola Amor helped me get off the car, while my mother took our bags. They led me into the emergency room where the nurses had a wheelchair ready and waiting for me.

The nurses took me in and pushed me into a hospital bed covered up by curtains.

The fuzzy feeling in my head was still there, and the world became a blur before my eyes. A flurry of doctors came to my makeshift room to ask me questions and to plug tubes and needles into me. I think I gave incoherent answers. When they could get nothing from me, the doctors turned to my mother and Lola Amor.

“It’s too early for labor,” I heard a man’s voice say. “She’s not even dilated. You didn’t need to take her here so soon.”

“Her water broke, shouldn’t that mean anything?” my mother said. “There was blood.”

“It didn’t. It’s normal for some bleeding this early into her pregnancy. You did experience something like this when you were pregnant with her, right?” the doctor said as if shifting the blame to my mother. “Nonetheless,we’ll keep her here for a couple of—”

“She’s in pain,” I heard my grandmother interject.

“It shouldn’t bother her,” the doctor said.

“Doctor, she’s in pain. It bothers her,” my grandmother firmly said.

“As I was saying, we’ll keep her here for couple of hours to monitor her condition,” the doctor said. “A nurse will come by to check her vitals.”

A swish of curtains and the doctor was gone. My mother went out to follow him. Lola Amor sat down on the chair next to the bed and held my hand.

“Apo, you’ll be alright. I’m here,” she said almost in a half-whisper.

I squeezed her hand. My lips felt dry and cracked. I felt a slim layer of grease and sweat on my skin. My insides felt like mush, and I can feel it shaking from the inexplicable pain and weakness in my entire body. I looked at her, and the taste of alatiris became a phantom sweetness on my tongue.

“Lola,” I said, feeling my throat raspy. “Did you have an alatiris tree in your old home?”

Lola smiled and squeezed my hand again.“Why, yes, apo. Your Lola Grace, my mother, loved that tree so much. Says it reminded her of someone important. She asked to be buried under that tree. I fell from that tree though when I was a child.”

I laughed, making the pain shoot out like bolt of lighthing throughout my body. Lola stood from her chair to look me over and then tried to pull away to get help. I didn’t let go of her hand.

“Don’t go, Lola…” I told her. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Hush, apo, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” she said, sitting back down.

“Am I being punished, Lola Amor?” I began, tears streaming down my face. “Am I being punished for wanting too much?”

Tears fell on Lola’s cheeks, too, which she immediately wiped away with her free hand, hoping I wouldn’t see it.

“This is not a punishment, anak,” she began. “You are strong. Your brave. You are loved. You can get through this.”

“Why am I the only one who has to go through this then?” I said. “I didn’t make this baby on my own.”

Lola pursed her lips and put her shoulder bag down on the floor. For a second, I thought I heard it vibrate. “He’s not coming, Eve,” she said firmly. “You’ve never needed a man to live, to be happy. You and your daughter won’t need one now or ever.”

“Is the pain my punishment because I tried to get rid of her then?” I asked, looking up at the ceiling. The harsh white hospital light blinding me for a second.

“You made a choice,” Lola said.

“Did I make the right choice?”

“I can’t answer that for you,” Lola said, and then she laughed, trying to lighten my mood. “That’s the nature of choice, isn’t it? You making it for yourself?”

I forced a laugh, but it came out as a weird mumbling sound in my throat.

I remembered Lola Grace and wondered if she would have made the same choice as I did had she been given the chance to choose.

A nurse came into the room and took out a syringe and needle from her kit.

“What’s that?” Lola Amor asked, her hold on my hand tightening protectively.

“The doctor prescribed painkillers, Lola,” the nurse said. It annoyed me that she addressed my Lola in that tone of voice, as if the nurse was trying to put her in her place.

“Will it be safe for her and her baby?” Lola said, her hold loosening up a bit.

“Yes, Lola. It’s a very small dose,” the nurse said as she injected the liquid into one of the tubes attached to me.

Lola watched the nurse go about her business, and I just laid there, staring at the ceiling, feeling the pain turn into a dull ache. The harsh hospital lights forced me to close my eyes.

And then there was darkness again.