“Son”

(By: Jaime An-Lim)

The man wanted a son desperately. It did not seem an unreasonable demand. All
young husbands must have wanted the same thing, he thought, whether they said so or
not. A son to bear the family name, to fulfill his own secret lost ambitions, to carry the
illusion of immorality.
He had grown up in a house full of overprotective and doting sisters. He never had a
brother who could have shared the joy of a rambunctious childhood. Shouting matches,
skinned knees and all.
His pregnant wife felt put upon by her husband's inordinate desire for a son. She
could not very well command her body to produce a boy. Climbing the right side of the bed
or having sex during her most acidic period, notwithstanding. There was no guarantee.
Besides, she did not feel strongly either way, boy or girl. So long as it was healthy and
complete. Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes. No more, no less. She did not even care if it came
out bald.
So she was relieved to find out, after the ultrasound, that it was going to be a boy.
And even doubly relieved, later, to be assured how perfectly healthy and normal it was. Her
husband wanted rambunctious; well, rambunctious it promised to be. Months before it was
due, it rolled and kicked spiritedly. It was as if it could not wait to get out.
With immense pride, the man caressed the baby's head and fists and elbows
through his wife's distended belly. During the ninth month, it quieted down a bit, its
movement getting sluggish. When it was pulled out later, the baby was already blue. Very
blue and very dead. It had been dead two weeks in its mother’s womb, helplessly entangled
in umbilical cord.
The woman was grief-stricken, the man devastated. When they embraced.it was not
clear who was consoling and who was being consoled.
In the memorial park, they picked a spot that got the morning sun and had a lovely
view of the Iligan Bay beyond the treetops of mahogany and pine. For a while they visited
every weekend because the man could not bear the thought of his son being alone, buried
in the windswept hillside. Without saying, “Let's visit Jun-Jun,” they would go straight to the
Pala-o market after Sunday mass, pick up a fresh bunch of white miniature mums, and go to
the cemetery. There they would sit on the bermuda grass by the baby's grave and watch
the inter-island ships inch into harbor or sail toward the horizon for unknown shores.
Sometimes, the man would talk to his son.” Son,'' he would begin in his head.” Son....” But
there was nothing else he could say, except what he had already said before: that he
wished he were there with them, that he could hold him in his arms. that he was at peace
wherever he was in spirit, among the angels. The woman, who had already come to terms
with their son's death, kept a worried eye on the living and let the dead take care of itself.
Time passed. Once a week eventually became once a month. Then once or twice a
year, usually on the baby's birthday and on All Soul's Day in November.
Some days no thought about their son crossed their minds. If they felt a lingering
emptiness inside, they would be hard pressed to say what it was exactly, or what had L99-
been taken away. They did not mean to forget their loss or lessen their grief. It was just that
there were other pressing things to think about. And, partly, because by then they already
had other children. Four in a span of eight years, all girls, one after another. If the man felt
disappointed, he did not let on. He realized that he did not love them any less for being
what they were, and even enjoyed their endless girl talk of crushes and fashion and movie
stars.
The son faded in the background. There was nothing in its brief life to call forth a
memory: a peculiar walk, how he laughed, his favorite nursery rhyme, game or TV show,
the shirts hanging in the closet, how he combed his hair. They could not even remember
the color of his hair or his eyes.
But the man seemed content enough now. Then, during a routine physical checkup,
prior to the man's retirement from government service, they discovered he had fiver
cancer. It came as a complete shock because the man did not feel any great pain in his
body. He did not smoke, did not drink. He exercised regularly. That was in November. In
December, he lost thirty pounds and his skin turned waxen and yellow. In January, his
mouth became so dry—it was coated with a white chalky substance—he could hardly speak
above a whisper. He kept asking for water. His face shrunk around his skull. He became all
cheekbones and sunken eyes. When it was clear he did not have much longer to live, he
gathered his wife and his four grown daughters round his deathbed and told them his last
wishes.
He died two weeks later, on Valentine's Day. According to his wishes, they buried
him