Romance of the Four Juans

Track 10

The ride home with the four brothers was engulfed in silence for the first minute, each trying to introspect on the events that led to this night.

One brother, the youngest, looked like he was about to cry again, like the first time they all came together. Another brother, the eldest, is laughing to himself. The second is fuming, hitting Huan’s arm, telling him to concentrate on driving. While the third child is being the usual middle child with his unreadable expressions, having an intercession with his own self about why he’s irked. Is it simply because his peaceful sleep had been disturbed or something else entirely?

Everyone turned towards the youngest whose tears had fallen again.

When asked why, An-An answers. “I did know her, Kuya Kiko’s sister. I sat next to her on the plane. When she said she'd been waiting for me to call, she meant to call the phone I tried to lose. It was in her possession. Now, she’s given it back, and I don’t feel very well because all the memories I had of the girl I lost are stored here. I don’t want to remember it anymore.”

Jigo’s hands extended to pat the youngest. “It came back to you. It’s probably her way of saying don’t forget me. You have regrets, but why would you want to forget when her existence in your life had been a beautiful one? Please don’t cry because you regret her, cry only because you miss her. Okay?”

An-An nods.

“But Jigo, what were you doing at HB's place?”

“I don’t even know it myself, kuya. I simply went with the flow.”

Kiko said so many things after, giving them a lecture and pleading for them not to get involved with the women in his life. It got lost to the two youngest as one stifled a cry and the other looked out into the darkness of the skies, wondering if he could go to sleep again.

He couldn’t.

Jigo kept tossing and turning in his bed, his mind wandering off to certain events earlier that night, replaying conversations with HB over and over. Sleep had been forgotten. And so, when morning came, his heart was racing, and it was as if the air was refusing to come into his lungs. His body felt so heavy, but his head was light. He didn’t take many steps, he only managed to open his bedroom door, then came his fall.

But even when he woke up, his first thoughts were not how he got back in bed or who put him there. “How did she know?”

“Know what?” An-An, came in with a pitcher of water and a glass. He placed them on the bedside table before taking Jigo’s temperature, 38 degrees. He looked at Jigo, who was muttering something incomprehensible. “Whom?”

Jigo’s eyes locked on him. “HB. She told me last night that I’d be sick today. Is she clairvoyant?”

“She must be.”

“Can you ask Kuya Kiko if I can have her number? I want to ask.”

An-An folds his arms in contemplation.

Jigo is not delirious, he decides, just that his mind is someplace else.

“I don’t think you should go to Kuya Kiko about those matters, kuya. A girl’s number should be asked from her and should be given by her. Don’t ask it from anyone else. HB promised to drop by, so if you can get yourself out of bed by then, ask her yourself. But you shouldn’t dare leave this bed, kuya. I think it’s not ordinary back pain, you might have a slipped disc.”

Jigo shook his head, doing so made his world spin. “If I can’t, will you ask her for me?”

“I told you…”

"Not the number. Ask how she knew that I'd be sick today. Because what if she’s a witch who cursed me?”

“Now, you’re being ridiculous.” An-An took a deep breath. He remembers something Kiko said in passing about HB’s black cat Nine, how she’s more of a familiar rather than a pet because she takes away her owner’s ailments. If a pet can take it away, what if it can also give back that disease to other people? Shivering at the thought, he covered Jigo’s soles with a blanket. “I’ll let you rest.”

The next moment Jigo woke up, An-An was there again, this time with a bowl of porridge that Huan had prepared. The youngest looks exhausted.

Jigo pushes himself into a sitting position, “Did you catch my cold?”

An-An shakes his head. “I asked HB for you.” From his pocket, he produced a frog origami and dropped it on Jigo’s palm. “Her answer.”

Jigo cupped that paper frog in his hand, taking time to appreciate it. When he disassembled the folds, he finds words neatly written in semi-cursive script.

It reads, “I have not cursed you. Being ill out of the blue does not only happen when someone is exhausted or infected, sometimes it becomes a natural or the only acceptable response when you’ve been away for so long and you finally arrive home. That kind of illness, whether it be a simple fever or a bad cold, is like a personal plea, a demand for people who care enough to come and take care of you. Enjoy being sick. Enjoy the warmth of home. ~HB.”

He clutches the paper to his chest and looks at An-An. “Did you read it?”

“Please. She folded it into a frog. I wouldn’t even know how to put it back. What did she say?”

Jigo chuckles as he coughs. His hand reaches for a pillow to cover his reddening face as he slowly slinks back into the comfort of the mattress. He might just cry. He could feel his eyes stinging. That girl is so sweet, yet he dared accuse her of putting a curse on him. Jigo understands the words, and she is right, of course. His homesickness merely manifested itself into real, physical pain.

No one knows just how much he longed to come back to his home country. Leaving after his grandparents passed, and with his mother residing abroad, he saw no reason to go back because he always felt that there was nothing left for him here. He has been taking care of himself all this time, and to finally have a place to go back to and have people who will stand at his bedside and

check for his temperature, and bring him warm food, is such a delightful feeling indeed.

“Kuya? What did she say?”

Jigo sniffs the tears away. He pushes himself up then gives An-An an embrace, spreading the warmth he's feeling inside.

“Nothing. Just. Welcome home.”