Work Text:
Kapag makapiling ka
Hindi alam ang gagawin,
Iiwas ba o titingin?
Paulita, Isagani notes, is just like the sea. Fickle on most days, and often deceptively calm. She will ebb away from him like the tide, only to come flooding back when denied affection. However, he is mistaken in his comparison; the sea will always be there for him with its rolling embrace. He can always come back to it, despite its comings and goings. The same cannot be said of Paulita.
He thought she’d always be there.
Before he knew it, she was standing before him again. It was the quiet part of the afternoon, when the songbirds took their rest and the wind had turned into a gentle breeze. He stood there, speechless, at his desk at the tribunal office. What were the right words to say? He had not seen her in more than a year. Here she suddenly was, accompanying Juanito as he closed a business deal with one of the town’s residents? What a spectacle.
He waited, to see if she had anything, anything to say to him. He resented how had gone to Pili to escape the trappings of his past, and yet somehow the past managed to follow him.
“...Good afternoon, Isagani.”
“Good afternoon, Paulita,” he replied. If this meeting had occurred a month ago he would have wanted to shout or weep. But no more - he had buried those feelings, and had much work to attend to in this town. Between getting his uncle settled in as assistant parish priest and mending his relationship with his absentee father, he was too caught up in his affairs to ruminate about the past.
“What brings you here?” he asked. “Are you not accompanied by your husband? How is he?”
“Juanito is… doing well. He is still discussing things with Don Fermin outside. He just sent me here to pick up the business permits.” she said with an ambiguous tone. Had she come here ahead, on her own accord, to speak with him? Or was she dreading this conversation? Isagani, despite all the time he spent with her, still found Paulita to be an engima. He had, at one point, speculated that she was so used to hiding her feelings she managed to hide them from herself. Was she steeped in denial? He had no way of knowing.
“I see. Well, if you would be so kind as to wait, I can prepare those documents for you within the next few minutes,” Isagani replied.
Paulita looked away, frowning and clearly upset. She stared at the curtains and the portraits of the past gobernadorcillos adorning the walls. She pointed to the last one - Capitan Panchong’s picture.
“This is your current gobernadorcillo?”
“Correct. He is not here right now; he is meeting with Padre Agaton.”
“–His daughter. I have heard from the other wives that she is beautiful. Is that so?” Paulita asked.
“You’ve met young Cecilia?”
“You did not answer my question.”
“Well, among the flowers that bloom in this town, she is perhaps the most fragrant.”
Paulita chuckled. “Still a poet, I see.”
“I’ve long since put down the pen,” Isagani explained. “My work here keeps me busy. Although that does not preclude me from such musings from time to time.”
“That’s a shame. Perico still comes by our house in Manila, asking after you. It seems he’s finally bested you, that rival of yours.”
“Nonsense! I’m never surrendering to that upstart.”
“A ha! It seems you’ve still got some fire in you after all,” Paulita laughed. There was that smile again; it ached him to see it.
They heard footsteps leading up to the tribunal office’s door. Isagani surmised that it was Juanito.
“I must attend to my husband for now. And Isagani?”
“Yes?”
“Take care of yourself,” she said with a cold and dismissive air. He wanted to think that, deep down, she meant it, with a caring that he wished was there.