When Winter is Over

“When winter is over, I’ll take you there,” she said, pointing at the frozen pond about half a kilometer from the cafe we were in. “We go fishing.”

I didn’t look at her to say something. Maybe she said that because she knew I loved to fish in the sea with Father back in the Philippines. I could feel I embarrassed her when I kept silent. She couldn’t ask me if I was okay. I haven’t been okay since I came to the US. She wouldn’t get mad at me either for not responding, because for a long time, twenty years I guessed, this was the first time we had our meal together, alone. I’d wanted to have this moment.

“Why did you leave us?” I said, still looking out through the cafe’s window glass. I knew she was my mother, and although Father had raised me to respect everyone, especially her, I had kept that question for a very long time and I felt like it wanted to go out of my chest.

“I..,” she stammered. Perhaps she didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, Nathan. I did it for you and your father.” Her voice shook when she said it.

“You did it for yourself. You did it for your family. Not for me and Father,” I said in a firm tone, but I still didn’t look at her. If I looked at her, my heart would soften and I could no longer continue that conversation. I respected her as my mother, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t tell her what I’d hidden behind my chest all those years.

She sniffed. I could sense she began to shed some tears over what I had said. “I’m so sorry, son. I always pray every night that you and your father will forgive me for leaving you.” She cried quietly. “I left the Philippines to marry Carl. I found him on the internet twenty years ago. I and your father were still young back then. Had I stayed, we would have been drowned in poverty. I married Carl so I could come here, have a job with decent pay, and send money to you.”

“Didn’t you think about us? About going back to us?” I said, eyes still on the snow falling outside.

“I did, son. I had thought about it many times.”

“But why didn’t you go back?”

She paused for a moment. Maybe it was her way for me to glance at her. But I still didn’t look at her. I didn’t want her eyes to look into mine. I didn’t want to see my eyes in hers. I didn’t want to see my face on hers.

“Now that Father is gone, you suddenly come into my life. If he’s still alive, I will never come here. I’d never thought of coming here. I’d never thought of going to you. But I had to, now. No relatives would accept me. Even your family.” I said it to let her know how my maternal relatives had treated us, how they had derided Father for being poor, for being unable to give the world to her, for being unable, alone, to send me to school. I knew they were the reasons she came to the US and married her husband. She had sent them money every month, and when my aunt, her sister, would come to our house to give my tuition, she would purse her lips and insult Father. He swallowed his pride so I could study. How could a poor fisherman support his son’s studies? One time, my aunt hurled the money at him. He cried when she left. He thought I wasn’t there.

“If I could only turn back time, son. I’m sorry for my shortcomings. For abandoning you,” she said. She touched my hands, but I pulled them away.

“I only came here, not because you are my mother, but because I have to tell you I’ve been mad at you. That I have to tell you how your kins treated me and father. That I can’t accept you, right now, as my mother, although by blood, you are.” I looked at her at last. Tears had streamed down on her wrinkled face. She took a handkerchief from her shoulder bag to wipe them away. I knew how she felt right at the moment. She felt pain. The son she’d abandoned made that pain. I looked back at the frozen pond and said, “Perhaps someday I can go fishing with you when winter is over.”