A Shattered Vision Of My Perfect Family

Four

A Shattered Vision Of My Perfect Family

         From the distance, the apartment complex looked fantastic, with many buildings surrounded by mature trees, which Ma said were orange and lemon.  I was excited.  I loved climbing and picking fruits from trees.

         "Can I pick the fruits, Mama?"

         She laughed.  "If you can.  There's usually a race in that.  The fruits never mature in trees because people pick them long before they ripen."

         "Why is that?"

         "Because if you don't, there won't be any left for you to pick."

         It sounded strange to me, but I did not pursue the topic.  As we got closer to the apartments, the area became less fantastic looking. As we turned left toward the entrance, we saw a cop talking to a couple of young dark-complexioned Asian boys who wore earrings, oversize shirts and baggie pants.  The boys' faces looked hard and mean, tougher than the cop’s. 

         "Welcome to Hawaiian Terrace," a large sign said at the entrance of the complex.  Except for the two palm trees in front, there was nothing that resembled Hawaii anywhere.  As we drove in, I noticed another group of teenagers at the corner passing around a cigarette, while another was drinking from a bottle wrapped in a small brown bag.  They shot me a curious look and I instantly looked away. I could hear loud noises everywhere.  A variety of music and soap operas blared from radios and televisions in different languages.  I recognized my language in one of the apartments, a popular TV soap opera in the Philippines.  “We subscribe to the Philippine satellite station,” Mama said.  “So you’ll be able to watch your favorite programs here.”

         Our two-bedroom apartment looked small, with a few furniture covered with some crocheted afghans not large enough to hide the brownish stains and tears on them.  There were framed art prints hanging on the wall with crumbling wallpaper.  The huge TV in the living room looked expensive and prominent in contrast to everything else around the house. A collection of framed pictures of our family was arranged nicely on top of the TV.  I recognized most of them.

          “Your Auntie Vee and Uncle Greg gave the TV to us,” Mama had written in a letter sometime ago.  “Your father did a lot of house repair for them.  He didn’t want to be paid so they offered the TV instead.  They were planning to buy a new HD/Blu Ray TV anyway, so it worked out well for both of us.”

         Auntie Vee was Pa’s older sister.  Her family lived in Santa Barbara, about five hours from us.  She was a midwife in the Philippines, but she said babies were delivered only by doctors in the States, so she was now working as a medical assistant, not quite a nurse.  She worked many overtime hours so she made more money sometimes than registered nurses did.  “Filipinos do very well in the States because they’re hardworking people,” Auntie Vee had told Mama when they visited us in the Philippines.  “White people cannot believe that we own four houses when I’m only a medical assistant and your uncle Greg is only a postal employee.  Of course, his pension from the U.S. Navy is a big help.”

          “There’s nothing your father cannot fix,” Auntie Vee had said.  “Be it electronics, carpentry, plumbing, cars, what have you.  He could do anything.  Someday, I hope we could start a business in real estate.  I’d buy repossessed homes, and your daddy would fix them.  We could sell them several times more than what we paid for them.”

         Mama put the infant in his crib.  He didn’t complain; just made happy sounds as he stared at the ceiling, which made me wonder what he was seeing up there.  Ma led me to the kitchen.  The table had some Styrofoam boxes with leftover foods.  Grandma had warned me that Mama was too busy to cook so they bought their foods from the neighborhood Filipino restaurants.  I also heard Pa didn’t eat leftovers so it was either thrown away, or Ma ate it.

          “And to conclude our tour,” Ma said playfully, “I will show you your grand bedroom.” I followed her to where a bed sheet hung across the doorway.  “I don't know why there was no door there when we moved in," she said.  "Your father will install a door for you so you can have your privacy as soon as he buys the door, maybe this weekend.”

         The room was smaller than my room in the Philippines, and it was cluttered with boxes, toys, bags, shoes and some unidentified objects.  It was a two-bedroom apartment with limited space for four people. “I’m sure you can rearrange things to make the room look bigger and better,” Mama said.  “I didn’t have enough time to do it.”  She sounded apologetic.  I didn’t want her to feel that way.

          “It’s fine, Ma.  I like it.”

         It was a little dark in the room and it smelled like dirty laundry, so I walked over to the windows and flung back the curtains to let light and air in.  “We keep the windows closed and the curtains drawn,” Mama quickly explained.  “This is not the greatest neighborhood and I’m afraid of prying eyes, especially now that you’re here.”

         A chill ran through me.  I had heard of ghetto gangs who preyed on young girls. In the barrio back home, we never closed the doors and windows and I always felt safe there.  I pulled the curtain close again, remembering the group of guys at the corner just when we pulled into the compound.  I felt their sharp eyes on me when we drove past them.

         “It’s time for feeding,” Ma said, referring to the baby.  “We’ll be in the other room, okay?  Just feel at home, relax, change your clothes and take a nap.  You must be very tired.”

         I nodded assent.  She hugged me and kissed me on the forehead.  “I’m so happy you’re finally here,” she said.  I watched her walk to the other room where the baby was making some noises, more like a giggling, playful sound than crying.  I wondered how I could compete against such a good creature.  He was an angel.

~*~

         I was home . . . in America.  It seemed unbelievable.  After waiting what seemed like an eternity to reunite with my parents, I was finally home with them, but nothing seemed familiar, at least not from my own vision of home and family.  Everything looked different from what I’d dreamed of: the way my parents behaved on my first day, and even the way they looked; the place where they lived, and the way the house looked inside and outside.  And, of course, there was the complete family structure.  There was supposed to be a father, a mother, and a daughter—me.  But now there was a baby boy too, but I could live with that.  In fact, I could live with anything . . . if only my parents could show me the love and affection I had missed and make me believe they were thrilled to have me.

         Instead, Pa seemed anxious to get away from me.  What difference would a few more hours make away from work so he could spend more time with his daughter whom he had not seen for a long time? 

         Yes, my first day home with my parents was not what I had imagined at all.  I didn’t feel like I was home.  Instead, it was like visiting some relatives I had not seen in a long time so didn’t have much in common to talk about.

~*~

         I began to unload my things from my bags.  I wanted to take a shower but I felt suddenly exhausted, not sure if from the flight or from the emotions of a disappointing family reunion.  I had envisioned my first day chatting excitedly and endlessly with my parents about anything and everything; instead, here I was, alone in the room. 

         An eight by ten manila envelope spilled out of a notebook and I picked it up from the floor.  I pulled out a handmade card with a crude drawing on the front I had made for my parents for this very special occasion.  Together at last, I printed in rough calligraphy.  Love, April.   The drawing was of a man, a woman, and a child.  Behind them was a tree with lots of shade, and next to it a nice little house.  It was my vision of a perfect family—my fairy tale family.
 
         It was all an illusion--this fantastic family life I had created in my mind.

         I cried myself to sleep, hugging a pillow that smelled of baby puke.

~*~

         Hours later I awoke hearing my father next door, complaining to my mother about something.  “It was a long and tiring flight,” Mama said.  “She’s going to have a jet lag for days.”

          “I hope not too long.  Look at the mess in this house.  She needs to start contributing to housework right away.  Before you know it, she’d be going to school and won’t have much time for it.”

          “Don’t worry.  She’s a good girl.  She’ll be very helpful around the house.”

          I had never been good with housework, so what my mother had just said worried me.  If Papa only wanted me here so I could clean the house, then he was really going to be disappointed now, I thought.

         ”I certainly hope so.  I’d like to be able to come home to a clean and orderly house like before.”

          “Now that April’s here, I’ll have more time to do that because she’d be helping me take care of the baby.”

          “She should be doing the cleaning. Did you notice how indifferent she looked toward the baby?  I don’t think she liked the idea of having him around.  I told you, we should have told her about him as soon as we found out you were pregnant.  I never understood why you thought it was a good idea to keep it a secret from her.”

          “She was already traumatized that we left her for such a long time.  I didn’t want to add to that by telling her that she won’t have our undivided attention when she came.”

         ”Well, I think it was wrong.  She should have known about the baby.”

          “Maybe you’re right, but it’s too late now, so let’s just make the best of it.”

         I felt light-headed.  My first day with my parents and they were already arguing about me.  Quietly, I got up and retrieved the family album from my duffel bag.  Soon I let the old pictures take me in flight, soaring up high, going back to that mystical land I had created in my mind where a perfect family of three lived happily together.

~~***~~

WORD COUNT: 1,810

Please read also this next chapter:

ID: 1586791   (Rated: 13+) My New Life In America   My early visions of my new life in America is shattered by my father's treatment of me. by APRIL SHOWER