Dating : I’ll Do Alright

short story #45

“You’re sure you have everything you need?” she said. “Shirts?”

He didn’t stop walking or even look at her as he said, “Yes, Mom.” He was carrying his last few garments from his cabinet to the suitcase laid open on his bed. Piles of clothes were folded neatly around the suitcase, pairs of shoes were lined up on the floor next to the bed.

“Handkerchiefs?” she said.

“Yes, Mom.”

“Briefs?”

He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mom,” he said. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

She normally would have been indignant at such an outburst but this time she didn’t seem to have heard. She clicked her tongue as she did when she was worried and she bent down and started flipping through and examining the clothes piled on the bed around the suitcase. She groaned and said, “I knew we should have bought another pair of pants!”

“Four pairs are plenty, Mom.”

“That’s what Benjohn said but you see how he is when he comes back to visit on Sundays. He’s dressed in rags. I keep telling him we need to buy him a new pair of pants.”

“It’s a style Mom,” he said.

“Some style.”

“Besides, there won’t be any more space left inside the suitcase.”

She wasn’t convinced. She said, “I’ll find a way to send them to you, then.”

He sat down on the bed and started to place his belongings into the suitcase, starting with his shoes. She placed her hand on the top of his head and turned his face to hers and she looked at him, a vague hesitant smile traced on her lips. She always used to do this to him when he was a boy, but now that he had grown up she could only do it when he was seated and she standing. Besides, he had been more docile then, more patient — now she could only do it when he was caught off-guard.

She studied this face, those features so much like her own. And each time she did this it seemed to her like listening to music of years past not heard in a while, by which one is cast down the bittersweet flood of remembrance. It felt subtly different this time — as though she already knew, had already resigned to the fact that it would perhaps be the last time she would contemplate this face such. He felt uncomfortable.

“So handsome,” she said.

“Aw, Mom.” He pulled himself back from her hold.

“Don’t let the girls get to you, okay? Studies first.”

“You’ve told me already, Mom.”

“I can’t say it enough. I always told your brothers: no girlfriend until you’ve graduated and are earning enough to support a family. But none of them ever listened.”

“Okay.”

“No frats, either. They are nothing but trouble.”

“But Mom, I thought we’ve already talked about this. It will be to my interest, that’s what Kuya JT said.”

“Some interest. Look what’s happened to him. He’s been there for six years now and he still can’t get a diploma.”

“Mom. Don’t change your mind now, please. You already said I could.”

“I said I’ll think about it. Now I have.”

He grumbled. He turned away and started to carefully lift each pile of folded clothes and tuck them carefully into the suitcase. She stood there, she watched him. There was something she felt on seeing the deftness of his movements, that manly self-assuredness — it was a sort of debilitating unsettlement in her knees.

Now it occurred to her that she should have said something more. But she couldn’t think what that could be.

He turned his head a little from his packing and then he saw her in his periphery. He sighed as if he’d forgotten that she was still there.

“Look, Mom,” he said. “I’ll do alright. I promise I’ll do alright.”

“I know.”

He continued packing and he closed the suitcase as she watched.

“Listen, let’s get some sleep, how about it, Mom? I plan to get up early tomorrow so I can set up the things at the dorm then be on time for my first class.”

“What time?” she said. “I’ll make you breakfast. Waffles.”

“Sounds delicious, Mom.”

“You bet it’ll be.”

“But I was planning to just pass by McDonald’s on the way or something. I’ll be in a rush. I’m really sorry.”

“Oh.”

“I hope you understand?”

“Of course. You can’t be late for your first class.”

He smiled weakly. “Good night?”

“Good night.”

He kissed her.

When she got to bed, her husband was still up, the bedside lamp still on. She started to undress then she studied her face on the mirror. He watched her.

“They say the last one is the most painful,” he said.

“That’s a lie,” she said as she got under the sheets. “I felt every single one of them.”

He brushed her cheek with his fingers. “If it gives you any consolation,” he said, “we’ll have the house all to ourselves again. It’ll be just like how it was when we were young, when we just got married.”

She smiled at him. She looked very tired. “Except now we are old,” she said.

He laughed and then said, yawning, “Amen to that. Old and bushed.”

He turned around and switched off the bedside light. She lay as her eyes adjusted to the total blackness and they were both silent for a while.

“You’ll still see them on the weekends,” he said. “It won’t be that bad.”

She closed her eyes and thought about this. She said, “It’s not the same. It’ll never be anymore.”

She waited but she received no reply. She heard her husband’s long, even breathing. She turned and saw that he was no longer moving save the peaceful rise and fall of his chest.

She closed her eyes again and kept still and waited. She tried this in another position. She gave up after a while. There were too many things passing through her head and it didn’t make any difference whether she closed her eyes or not. She slowly slid her legs out of the bed and she got out of the room.

She walked across the hall to another bedroom, that of Benjohn’s, the eldest. She lay on the bed without even removing the sheets. She could not help but notice that it still smelled like him. She closed her eyes for some minutes but soon got bored and went to Benjohn’s cabinet and opened it. She was disappointed, it was almost empty, only dust and old clothes there.

She closed the cabinet then crept slowly to her youngest son’s room and stood at the door and placed her hand on the knob. She thought she could resist her heart no longer. She turned the knob and opened the door slowly, slowly. She peeped in and just stood there, bent, leaning on the doorknob.

He slept so silently. It was dark, she couldn’t even see him. But it gave her a final contentment to know he was there.