A Kiss of Bleeding Fire

04

IT was torture seeing her cry every day. To see the woman I was looking up to mourn the man who never loved her. I witnessed how she relapsed. I witnessed how she nursed those liquor bottles and poisoned herself to sleep. I heard her wail in her room every night; slowly slipping away from her sanity.

Her skin was pale; her lips were chapped; her eyes were vacant. She was soulless. The woman who had a wonderful soul was now looking at me with vacant eyes; the light in her eyes was now turned into faint darkness. Sad. Devastated. Melancholic.

My mother was depressed. I was two years old when she learned my father got another woman pregnant and was about to be born a little girl. I had no recollection of how my mother reacted to the news but I knew for sure she took it bad. But she fought for me. She told me many times that I was the fire that kept her burning; keeping her alive in the middle of the cold lonely days.

My father tried to be a father and a good husband after the news. My grandmother took an action to manipulate my father to choose us.

We were happy. Or that was what I thought.

But when I reached the age of five, my father started to leave the house frequently and it was not about work. He started visiting his mistress again. He had a child with that woman and he looked so in love with her. Every time he came home, his eyes were so alive and bright while my mother's were vacant and empty.

I started resenting his mistress and his bastard.

My father was selfish. He did not love us. He loved his mistress and his bastard. He can leave us to die in a desert while he cannot let his mistress get bitten by a mosquito. I hated them. I loathed them.

One night, when I was in my room, I heard a loud thud. It came from my parent's room. I immediately leaped off the bed and charged out of my room. I almost stumbled when I accidentally stubbed my toe against the doorframe of my room. I winced but I stifled the sound to roll off my lips. My chest was beating aggressively while my ears were pulsing loudly.

I looked at my toe and I saw that it was bleeding. Closing my eyes tightly, I bit my lower lip to stop the cry to roll out of my mouth. I needed to see if my mother was okay. I needed to make sure everything was fine. I needed to make sure I still had a father.

I hobbled down the hallway with an aching toe. Tears stung at the side of my eyes but I chided myself not to cry. I was a big girl. I needed to be. For my mother. For our family.

"Roberto, you are making a huge mistake!" I heard my mother scream, her voice was cracking. My chest cracked at the same time.

"Ayaw ko nang lokohin ang sarili ko. I can not live in a lie anymore!" My father said, his voice strained. I shivered when I heard how thick and serious his voice was.

"Pa'no si Lilith? Pa'no ang anak mo, Roberto?! I-iiwan mo siya para lang sa pansarili mong kasiyahan?!"

My chest burst. My tears started to stream down my cheeks. So, he was leaving us? So, he was so ready to leave us for his other family? So, that meant he loved them more than us.

"I shouldn't have agreed to the arrangement! That was the mistake I made and I am correcting it—"

"Correcting it? C-correcting by abandoning your child? Do you love Lilith, Roberto?!" Mama wailed as she tried to follow my father downstairs.

"I love Lilith! Don't ever question it, Ester!" My father looked at my mother, his eyes were blazing, "I just don't want to fool myself. Fool my child! Stop pretending that this house is full of love because it doesn't! We have a loveless marriage and soon enough Lilith will notice it! She will despise us more!"