A welcome surprise

It’s already after five in the evening in La Mesa, and Doro is late returning home from the provincial capital.  As he makes his way to his house in the poblacion from the main highway, he smiles at the activity filling the streets, the sounds and sights that will always remind him of home when he is away for work.  Kids are playing in the street with makeshift toys, girls and boys laughing and running together until their nanays call them home.  He sees Marie has already set up her barbeque trays for selling meryenda to those looking for meryenda as well as Ricardo with his pushcart calling “Fish Balls!” Just the words are enough to make him hungry, and he can almost taste the salty sweet food in his mouth.  This makes him quicken his pace home to his own wife’s dinner but not so much that he can’t greet the Bienvilla family and the Viloria family as they rest in plastic chairs on their front porch and lawn, “chikka-ing” about the happenings of the day.  Everyone smiles tooth-gapped grins at Doro and waves back in greeting, asking “Naggapuam?” or “Where are you coming from?” He answers with a smile and in return inquires about their families, how the harvest is going, and whether they think there’ll be rain any time soon. 

Finally, he approaches his own gate, and he opens it to enter, noticing that he needs to repaint its green-flecked surface again before typhoon season starts once more.  He is not over-worried, though, because he knows that is a few months away.  Right now, greeting his family is a more pressing matter.  He hears his wife’s small Pekingese yapping from inside the house in greeting, but Bea, his love, has kept the door closed to prevent the dog’s escape.  Carefully, Doro manages to open the door and get inside the house while being enthusiastically greeted by the dog but preventing her escape.  “Cholo, calm down!  Off!” Doro exclaims, with little impact on the dog.  But then Bea calls to her, and the dog runs into the kitchen, distracted by the optimism of food.  Or, at least, affection, for she is, after all, Bea’s dog.  The TV is blaring the evening news, but he notices his older daughter isn’t paying any attention to the headlines on the screen or his entrance into the house because her attention is absorbed by her telephone.  He notices it is tethered to her power bank, and he can’t help but wonder how long she’s been messaging her friends on the contraption.  He finds himself reminiscing about when she was still young and seemed like her world revolved around him.  She had always made Doro so proud to come home.  His reminiscence was interrupted, though, by the entrance of his young son, who was still that little boy fascinated by his father.

“Tatang, you’re home!  Look at my new dinosaur I drew!” Little Teddy was waving around a piece of lined notebook paper with a green monstrosity on it.  “Wow, Teddy, what’s his name?”   “Brontosaurus, he’s the biggest dinosaur there is, Tatang!  His neck is like a snake and his legs are like trees!” As Teddy stomps around the living room doing his best imitation of a brontosaurus, Doro suddenly hears from the kitchen, “Teddy, let your Tatang in the house.  Let him rest before you attack! And put your toys in your room.  It’s almost time for dinner.” “Yes Nanang,” Teddy answers exuberantly and stomps off with his dinosaurs in hand. 

Doro exhales loudly and kicks off his shoes at the door, walking over and picking up a plastic chair from in front of the dining table.  He carries it into the entrance of the kitchen, places it out of the way, and kisses his wife on the cheek while she finishes the evening meal.  “Good evening, amor, what are you making?” He sits down in the chair to watch her and she answers, “Pinakbet, your favorite.” She pauses, smiles, and says, “without bagoong, just as you prefer.  Sometimes I wonder if you’re really Filipino” Bea adds with a sly smirk.  “Ay sus, woman, you know I’m allergic; but what is the occasion? You haven’t made pinakbet since my birthday.” “Well, Doro, I have news.  It appears like we’ll need to finish the expansion on the house sooner than we had originally planned.  We’re going to have another child.”

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