PROMPT - a secret revealed

From Judy Reeves' "A Writer's Book of Days" - "Write about a time you found out about something you weren't supposed to know."


A Secret Revealed

Aunt Leena tosses her tenth bottle of beer on the floor. She giggles and slaps her hand on the table then staggers to the kitchen and comes back with another opened beer bottle in her hand.

"Don't you think you had enough?" Lulu asks, concern etched in her face, but she says this with a smile.

"You don't know me," she jabs a thumb at her chest. She motions the hand holding the beer bottle towards me. "Ask your friend here," she says grinning at me, "C'mon, tell Lulu how many bottles I can down normally in one afternoon."

I chuckle as I remember the many Sunday afternoons Aunt Leena spent at our house just drinking beer. On the fifth bottle, she would become invariably obnoxious, or dramatic, or sentimental, depending on what was going on in her life. Aunt Leena is a lesbian, had been in and out of many failed relationships with women. When she had had more than seven bottles, one can bet, if you know someone she knows who has a secret, she would be sharing that secret with you.

I haven't seen Aunt Leena in a long time. She has been here in Singapore for almost five years. My friend Lulu and I are touring Southeast Asia, doing some shopping for our little boutique back home, and since we are in the area, I deem it would be a good idea to call on her.

I wink at Lulu who mouths her concern for Aunt Leena. I shake my head, meaning not to worry. First of all we are in Aunt Leena's own apartment so in all likelihood she would just fall asleep anytime.

Presently, Aunt Leena gets up and retrieves a photo album from a small bookcase. She flops down beside Lulu on the sofa, opens the album and identifies the people on the photographs. Some of the photographs are old and some of which I had seen before as a young girl because we had copies of them at home. She turns the page and fingers the edge of the sepia photograph. She is quiet and for a while Lulu and I surmise she is about to fall asleep. But she isn't.

"Here," she mumbles, "this is my yayah." Suddenly, she is crying. Lulu looks confused.

"It's the alcohol," I say.

"No," Aunt Leena says. "I just feel sorry for my yayah."

I stand up and look at the picture. It shows three toddlers on a bench, one not quite two years old, the second about four, the third is aged about six or seven. Behind the bench stand two young girls, Yayah about 14 or 15 at the time, and one of their older cousins. Yayah was my late mother. Aunt Leena was born when the war broke out in the Philippines. Their family was very poor and all children stopped going to school to find work in neighboring farms. Yayah was left at home to take care of the household and the new baby. That was how she was called Yayah, which means "Nanny".

"Well," I say, suddenly feeling nostalgic for my mother who had passed away some twelve or so years ago. "She's in a better place now. Let go then."

Aunt Leena continues to cry. "Yayah! My poor yayah!"

I grab the photo album to put it away. Lulu tells Aunt Leena that she has better sleep off the alcohol. I look at the photograph. We had one like that at home. My mother always hid it in her cabinet, along with a few other old photographs. Once I remember seeing it and asking her who those children are. Mother explained that the baby was Aunt Leena, the bigger child Aunt Merce and the taller child a cousin.

"You were a pretty baby, Aunt Leena," I tell her. "But what happened to you?" I say this laughing to lighten the situation for she is still bawling herself. Lulu makes a small laugh and tells me I am bad.

Aunt Leena grabs the album. "Yes, I was about four in this picture."

"No, this is you," I correct her and point to the youngest toddler on the bench.

"That's not me," she defiantly says. "They had you believe that this is me and this is Merce and this is someone else. But look closely."

I know I had stumbled upon what is like a gold mine. For years, after looking at those old pictures, I had suspected that the eight-year old child looked more like Aunt Merce. But then Aunt Leena, my mother and their other siblings all had the distinctive look of their parents, wide brown eyes, thick brows and lashes, wavy black hair, full lips, rounded nose, high cheekbones, and freckles. Whenever I would tell my mother about who should be those children in the pictures were, I always got scolded. What the hell do I know? I wasn't there? It's her picture, it's her siblings and relatives. She ought to know who those people are in the picture! After that, it would be a long time before we got to see the picture again.

"Sooooo," I tell Aunt Leena, "I have always told Mother that she got the picture wrong. That this is you, and this is Aunt Merce."

"Yes," Aunt Leena answers.

"So who is this baby? Whose baby is she? And why did you, guys, insist on getting yourselves mixed up about that?"

"That's my yayah's baby."

I feel my ears turning red. This is certainly unexpected. I have always thought the baby could've been someone else's. But I quickly do the math. My mother would have been 14 in the picture. No more than 15.

"Excuse me?" I say. I see Lulu's mouth gape, her eyes widen.

"That's your half-sister," says Aunt Leena.

"You are definitely very drunk. Mother could not have been more than 15 here."

In my mind, I know I am not stupid. Biology was my favourite subject in high school. I was tops in my class. I knew enough about sex and biology and that a girl, once menstruating, and has had coitus, with a man, of course, would be capable of getting pregnant.

"That's right. I'm very drunk and yayah was 15 in that picture."

I look at her in shock. Then I remember that I had an older sister who died of diptheria before her first birthday.

"Is that Herminia?" I ask.

"No," comes the reply.

"Tell me about it then." I lay back on the lounge chair and put my feet on the coffee table, interlock my fingers and rest my hands on my stomach.

"Are you sure you're ready to hear this, Virginia?" Lulu asks.

Aunt Leena continues to stare at the photograph.

Our father died before I was born. There was the war. Our mother needed to have a man in the house, for safety, you know. So she married again. My older brother and sisters did not approve of it but they couldn't do anything. The man had his own farm and he was able to feed all of us.

Yayah was a very pretty girl, I'm sure you know that. She was left at home to care for me and to do the house chores while everyone else worked the field. One day our stepfather came home at lunch and raped yayah. He threatened her but eventually she had to tell our mother what happened. But no one could do anything. If our mother would ask her husband to leave, we would have no food. Because of that, my mother's health started to fail. My older brother and three sisters left home. Yayah and I were sent to Manila. After yayah gave birth, we came back and our mother owned the child. But of course, everyone in the village knew what happened because our stepfather told everyone. Out stepfather was shot by the Japanese shortly before the liberation. Being married to my mother, his farm and the house went to our mother. She had always said she had paid a high price for those properties. She felt guilty about yayah. When the opportunity for yayah to marry your father came, they grabbed at that chance. That was why yayah was like a meek lamb with your father. She was damaged goods but your father still took her for a wife.

"Where is that baby now?" I ask her. I am torn between hating that child and wanting to see her at the same time. To think that somewhere I have an older sister rouse such interest in me. I know that our family had a big secret about my father. But now, this. This is totally unexpected. This one was a closely guarded secret. But I remember hearing hushed conversations from the older folks that had double meaning. This is one of those stories.

"She died when she was about two or three," Aunt Leena says softly. Her lids are getting heavier and I am afraid she would fall asleep and I would never know the end of the story. "Diptheria."

"So, just to make sure, this baby and Herminia are two different babies."

"Yes."

"Will you look at that!" is all I could say.

(tbc)