Perennial Summer

A Short Story by Eduardo Bautista

“Since then, a new day had shone on my vision and the tropical breeze brushed along my cheeks- announcing the coming of perennial summer.”
- Mary Grace

“That was a long time ago, but I still missed him.”
“Haven’t you considered, you know, meeting someone else? To give you real attention and importance?”
“There is no such thing that I recognized then. I was so naïve a girl that I paid no attention to them.”
On my front, touching behind the single-size couch in an angle where she was sitting was a wall that held memories of distant past. “Is that you?”
“Yes. My mother said I was so beautiful,” she said without even turning. “She always had a reason of taking me a picture.”
“When was that taken?”
“It’s my 14th birthday.”
As I stared back through her, that beauty had been departing and leaving wakes on her face just above the hammocks of sagging flesh. In between were deep lines that gradually formed as she smiled; probably delighting the boys back in her youth.
I was staring at one of the photographs. With the reluctant smile on the photo was a daisy clinging on her right ear.
“We are supposed to be together with my best friend there,” she said. “But because it’s my birthday she let me have the shot. The yellow daisy, if you want to know, was the only daisy around. We don’t have a choice. Violets are rare. When my aging aunt discovered that one of her well-taken-care daisies was missing, she went so mad that it became the cause of her death; so sad that when we told it to our friends, they can’t help laughing.”
I still remembered the potent smell of fresh daisies coming from a flower vase. It was perching over a wooden tripod placed at one corner of the house. The smell gathered and mixed with the presence of old newspapers of the early 50’s, creating an ambiance that flowed through nostrils as if they were patient emotions that had been there for so long and someone should feel every time they entered the house.
“When I met my husband, I was not in the thought of marrying him, but because he had been very nice to me and that he proposed, I said yes. I was so afraid to be alone especially my mother had just died. I’m like the other women out there scared for their security.”
As I returned my gaze on the flaking wall of photographs, I hadn’t seen any recent picture, neither in any part of the house. Although on the entryway, there was only an isolated photo of a man beaming on the lenses, maybe in some western forest, in a military fatigue. I didn’t bother to ask. The young man and the old woman I was interviewing had never had a child. I was about to ask more when tears started to blur my periphery.
“How about Clive?”
“He’s gone,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“How could he be gone?”
“You know, since I was 12, he was always there; like wind when I call and like wind once I whispered I needed him. But maybe he was just tired of me. Maybe he thought I was always controlling him; so then I let him. He turned to breeze blowing away from here.”
“I grew up believing we would be together forever,” she continued after realizing the growing silence. “Practically, as long as I could conceive him different from me.”
I made a sound so she would feel I was listening.
“There were suitors when I stepped 18. I still remembered most of their names but their faces. I was in Ohio when I met one of them- Peter. I no longer remember the face but he might be the most beautiful boy I’ve ever met; three years younger though. Nevertheless, I was afraid that Clive would be hurt so I hadn’t given my acceptance to any of them. Anyway, ignoring suitors was fun.”
The thought drew a smile on her face. Her eyes still transfixed to mine. As young and glittering as it had been.
“I couldn’t imagine my parents’ confusion as to why I was doing that to myself. They frequently thought I was into girls,” she said. “All of it I bear on my shoulders for more decades to come because I was into the childish belief that if only I held on Clive long enough, God would have pity and would make him real.”
“Then on 1941, I met my husband.” She said. Although he was the exact opposite of Peter in appearance, 11 years younger, he gave me another chance not to be alone. However, he had never brought his promise for a long time.”
I silently unzipped my backpack and pulled my pad and ballpoint.
“He left you?”
“I was 56, barely a year after the marriage, when I received a letter saying he died fighting in Vietnam. I felt relieved. My worries of him dying in the war had vanished and my life hence had been changed for the better. I was sitting on this same couch every night until midnight, staring and feeling, thinking of how things would turn if he hadn’t died. Honestly, there was no crying, or depression of some sort. It’s just a plain thinking as if he was a stranger I only met once- on that afternoon in the barracks, and never met since.”
She turned her head towards the wall clock that had been giving accurate guide without its permission since it was nailed on the wall.
“It’s getting late. Don’t you have parents to worry?” She placed her hands on her lap, caressing as if it began to hurt.
“It’s for a school project. They would understand.” I assured her.” So after your husband passed away, don’t you have any relative to go home with?”
I wrote something on my pad.
“I don’t think so. Maybe they wouldn’t even care if I was still alive. The closest relative I have, we just lost communication 5 years after Mike, my Husband, died. And with my best friend, I just heard she had cancer. I don’t know how she was now. But if you’re worried of how I could manage the household, don’t be fooled by what you see.” She gave out a laugh. A difficult laugh that was drawing every bit of energy she could have gotten from several hours of sleep.
I went home at 7 o’clock. I left after I refused to join her for dinner. Since then, as I gave my final gratitude and was about to leave the house, it occurred to me that she was indeed happy. Initially, I doubt it. I thought it was another cliché from the elders, but she had been alone for a very long time. Since she and her husband lived here in the Philippines for convenience during the war she had survived all by herself as her choice and decided not to come back home.
Yesterday morning, she was found by her neighbors dead on her couch. They said she’d been dead for almost a week since it was starting to smell.
On that day, the absence of life around her had been uncovered. The sullen, lifeless breeze finally broke out of the house into the lively street of seldom old houses and trees that rarely moved even during a storm.
For some ineffable reason, a vision of contentment was felt by the people who had carried her body into the carriage. So as they say. Maybe from the aftermath of despair, or she had realized how things should really be.
Several days after, I had my turn. It was the same day as Joseph Estrada was inaugurated as the new president.
I stood in front of my classmates as I was called. I recited:
“…For a young people like me, those experiences could be very depressing and unpleasant. But for an indifferent woman like Mary Grace, it was nothing but making memories. All of us, as we grew older, everything would just be memories.” They almost laugh. Some raise an eyebrow.
“ I realized that memory alone might be able to rip everything apart – leaving what is essential that has always been taken for granted. Have we been to wealth or disabling scarcity, it wouldn’t make any difference since it would all come to pass. Then is the time the word contentment would cease to be a cliché; when everyone realized every time it should be here.”
I walked passed every row and sat down. I was crying.

THE END