Romance of the Four Juans

Track 22

No one is ever prepared for unexpected guests. And no one in the Silverio household was prepared to welcome Americia Castilloni when she showed up at the gate with two massive silver suitcases that could fit a whole person inside, wearing a tank top and short skirt that showed endless legs. Tall, well-endowed, and with a tiny waist, just Kiko’s type. Dante hesitated a lot about whether to invite her in because of those threatening suitcases which made it clear that she was not there for a short vacation. Of course, Dante let her enter the threshold and even offered a beverage. The entire time he was left alone with the girl, he kept glancing at the clock, wondering when Kiko would come home.

Introductions were made when the eldest son passed by the living room on his way to get a beverage. Huan stayed for about five minutes for small talk, then left Dante to interrogate the girl on his own when the questions bordered into a personal level that made Huan uncomfortable. The personal questions can’t be helped. It is Dante’s right to get to know who could possibly be a part of his family in the future.

Then, the two youngest children of the house came back. They went together to pick Bivi from school.

Panic coursed through Dante, his hands gripped hard on the arm rest of his chair, as their baby girl introduced herself so innocently to the lady and even called her pretty.

“You’re very pretty as well, darling. Who owns you?”

Dante held his breath. “No one. I belong to myself.” And the grandfather exhales.

“Of course. I meant, who among grandpa’s handsome sons is your father?”

“You haven’t told me who you are yet and what you’re doing in our house.”

“Oh! I’m Ame. I’m Kiko’s girlfriend.”

Everyone watched as the young girl turned to the three men, who wondered what could be going through her young mind? They wouldn’t know what to tell her or how to console her. Bivi, though, doesn’t look disappointed. She looks rather excited as she runs back to Jigo, hugging his leg. “This one. This one is my father.”

The three men exchanged quick glances, wondering what exactly she was playing at.

Jigo is too shocked to move. Bivi is nodding at him, and he’s still processing if the girl had disowned her own father when she learned about this girlfriend. When the girl whines, “Papa~” he ends up laughing. He picks her up and carries her with one arm, claiming her as his. “Yep. She’s mine.”

Dante breathed a sigh of relief.

An-An sits right next to him chuckling, then offering an apology to their guest. “You’re not at all what we expected. We thought Kiko’s girlfriend would at least be part Asian.”

“Is that so?”

Dante, possibly like any other ordinary father, thought, rather expected that his sons would marry their fellow countrymen, preferably someone close, like a town away close. Who is he kidding? Two out of the four are not even citizens of the motherland anymore. And Kiko probably never even dated a Filipina in his entire life, evidenced by the daughter he produced. Bivi’s skin might be brown, but the only granddaughter of the family has some traces of a colonizer’s blood in her with her startling green eyes and light brown hair. Dante is not complaining, Bivi is a jewel, and he won’t ever exchange her for anyone. But marrying someone of foreign blood would mean that the future grandchildren of his family would not only be shared by two nations, or three, but also their culture and beliefs would be mixed. Most of all, the beautiful, physical, Filipino features he has in his genes might be outshined, dwindle down or worse, be recessive to the point that they just disappear. Of course, that is if they want children at all. Bivi might become the only grandchild of the family for all he knows. Dante is seriously concerned that he’s muttering under his breath again, praying to God and his parents in heaven to please bless him with more grandchildren.

“I want to see mama now.”

“Okay. Let’s go see mama.” At the stairs up the second floor, Jigo had to ask her. “Bivi, why did I become your father, ha?”

“Mama said, if a girl called Ame shows up, I shouldn’t be babbo’s daughter. She said to call any of you papa, you’ll understand. You’re it, Papa Jigo.”

Jigo plants a kiss on her cheek. “Thank you for choosing me, princess.”

Bivi lets herself down and runs to Kiko’s room, Jigo tailing closely. The little girl pulls HB out and drags her towards Jigo’s room. “Papa Jigo, open.” The man complies without thinking much about it.

“What am I doing here?”

“You need to hide, mama. Babbo’s girlfriend is here.”

HB turns to Jigo. “Ame is here? Then I shouldn’t be here.” HB’s hands bury on her thick curls, pulling at them as she paces inside the room. “She thinks I’m a great third wheel who’s out to separate her and her boyfriend. If she finds me here, she’ll think that Kiko and I are living together again, and she might stay here forever.”

“Then, don’t let her find out.”

“Help me sneak out.”

Bivi whines for her to stay. “Mama, your stays no longer last. I miss you. Don’t go. Be with me.”

HB looks at Jigo, who tells her to stay, for Bivi. “I’ll sleep with An-An.”

“Don’t. We’ll fit somehow. Let me just play the part of the sickly wife who doesn’t get out of the room.”

Jigo agrees, and he leaves them to do Bivi’s homework. He went back to the living room to listen in on his father’s conversation with Ame.

Kiko is also back and has taken a seat next to his girlfriend. It should be noted that with Ame around, Kiko looks more radiant than he’d ever been. Good for him. They look well suited, like some protagonists in a telenovela, Kiko playing the muscular and golden-skinned male character whose sexiness only gets enhanced by the sweat clinging onto his skin and Ame is a damsel waiting to be saved.

Amidst the admiration for the couple, Dante is actually scolding Kiko in Tagalog with a smile on his face. “Hindi siya pwedeng manirahan dito, Kiko. Isipin mo yung anak mo, naging anak bigla ni Jigo. Hindi ko alam kung bakit ka pinagtakpan ni Bivi pero ang swerte mo sa anak mo, nakakaintindi.”

“I would probably do the same for you, papa. If ever you were in the same circumstances.”

Dante rolls his eyes. It seems that his second son has no intention of making Ame leave. Now, he’s resolved to take it into his own hands. “Ame, how long are you planning on staying in the country?”

“For as long as my contract holds. I accepted a job post here.”

“Oh! You’re moving here. Have you found a place to stay?”

“I assumed I’d live with Kiko.”

“Live with us? I’m sorry, but I cannot allow that.”

An-An bites his nails as the tensions rose. His eyes darted from his father to his brother and he was even tempted to record this moment.

“No. I imagined we would look for a place together, and he would move in with me.”

“I don’t mean to shatter those plans, but I assumed that my son came here for me and is determined to stay with me for at least a year. Has it changed, Kiko?”

“Ah?”

Dante shakes his head at his son. Ame has bewitched Kiko. It seems there is no escaping their world. He may not always look the part, but Dante still holds the dignity of a well-bred man. He took Jimena to live with him then, but that was with the permission of his parents and also Jimena’s younger brother. And he’s not going to permit Ame to live with them today, unless…

“Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t want your staying with us to paint an example for my granddaughter, that it’s okay to stay with a man out of wedlock. I want to raise her without having to ask whether these circumstances are okay or not. I hope you understand. If Kiko can admit some truths you needed to hear, maybe I’ll permit it. Or if you marry him in the next month, why not come live with us then.”

“I’m not ready for marriage.” Ame’s answer was immediate. She didn’t even pause to think. “I’m only twenty-eight years old. It will take me a decade more to ever be ready for marriage. And I’m really not trying to live off of you. I cannot.”

Aware of Kiko’s desire to marry the girl, his family empathized with his disappointment. His shoulders literally fell upon hearing his girlfriend’s declaration, his head turned from her as he tried to regain his calm.

“I just want Kiko. We haven’t seen each other in a long time. I grabbed the job opportunity to be with him. I traveled across the world for him. Can you just let him be with me please?”

Dante took a deep breath. He finally understands why HB doesn’t want Ame for Kiko.

Ame wants Kiko alone. She doesn’t care for the family Kiko belongs to.

The son is blind to it, of course.

But like Jimena and HB, Dante doesn’t have the heart to say this is not the girl for you. The way Kiko looks at Ame, it’s evident that the girl can satisfy a desire deep within him that family will never be able to provide. Dante had seen the same thing in his youth. Whenever he looked at himself in the mirror, after Ayen, after trying to meet with as many women as possible, he would always look oddly satisfied. If Dante learned anything from his womanizing, it’s that people should not settle for satisfaction but should strive for fulfillment.

Men’s desires are a part of a mazelike tunnel, one path will likely open to another, taking you to places you’ve never been. It’s endless, and you won’t even realize that you are already lost.

It took Dante a whole year to realize that this was not the way to go on with his life. He then, bound himself forever, married himself to a friend. How long it would take his son to figure it out on his own, he doesn’t know. He does not even wish for Kiko to be a parallel of him, to marry a friend in the end. He could only hope that Kiko would realize the value of what is already present and pray that he wouldn’t abandon it when asked.

“Allow her to stay with us for a while, papa.” Everyone turned to look at Jigo. He had no business jumping in the conversation. Yet, his opinion weighed more over the rest of the arguments in Dante’s head.