Short Story | Laundry and Tricycle

By Eddlynn Jennifer Mangaoang

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    "I treasured those candies, Mrs. De Guzman gave us," Sylvia folded the white cotton t-shirt with aching hands. She turned to Aurelia.

    "Who?" Aurelia reached for another maxi skirt from the hamper.

    "Mrs. De Guzman," she unconsciously tightened her fist, creasing the shirt. "The lady from the third house? She gave us candies, 'member?"

    "Aah," Aurelia prolonged the vowel. She didn't have any idea.

    After a pregnant pause, Sylvia pushed herself from the couch, pain spreading in her back. She punched the spot as she walked towards the sunlight. Aurelia followed her with a  questioning gaze.

    "It was the first time I wished mother was not my mom, but instead Mrs. De Guzman," Sylvia saw little Alonzo from the next-door driveway pedaling his tricycle. His older sister coaching him.

    "Ow?" Sylvia heard a rustle. Something clicked at the back of Aurelia's mind.

    "Mother... she's so angry, I was scared of her at that time. She's never been angry before."

    "You wanted her to take a risk even though you knew there's a lockdown."

    "No, I didn't know."

    "Yes, you do. She just returned from a long shift from the hospital, during a holiday, mind you, but you wanted her to go out in the cold after she had a shower..."

    "I didn't understand at that time..." Sylvia only remembered her mother yanking and pulling at her, her wet hair and cold hands, and the bleakness in her eyes.

    Mother was a single mom. As a nurse, she was lucky - or was it unlucky - that she had work during a pandemic. There was food in the refrigerator, phone service, internet... Mother had money to pay bills. 

    "You didn't recognize her exhaustion, didn't you? Aunt Mila. Mean, mean Aunt Mila would come to babysit us and she would slap our hands if we didn't do our homework, or..."

    "Or tell us we were useless. Or that we're pigs because we ate too much. But mother didn't even do anything about it," Sylvia faced Aurelia.

    "Mother didn't know, and she never will. She didn't have the chance to," silent tears flowed from Aurelia's disappointed eyes, and she reached for a Kleenex below the table. "Mother's immune system was compromised and she had a fever. She never got that COVID, but because she was so worried about us, she waited on the front porch with only a flimsy sweatshirt against the cold Fall winds.

    "Because you insisted we go trick-or-treating. Because you were throwing tantrums and crying and being an embarrassing little 7-year-old."

    Sylvia sniffed and dabbed tissue on her face. "I was just a kid. I was a kid. I didn't know. I didn't know."

    "So? What right do you have to say you wished for another woman to be your mother instead? Aurelia threw her used tissue at Sylvia angrily. "I hope you realized why mother said to come back home after the third house. Get a hold of yourself and get out."

    Aurelia's mother was hospitalized the next day because of her 102-degree fever; she called 911 when her mother collapsed in the garage. She was about to go to her work. COVID-19 was devastating, and since it would be bad for them, her children, to contract the transmissible illness, they didn't let them visit her in the hospital. Aunt Mila, their father's sister, and mother's "friend" kept them updated.

    Aurelia found her mother's phone in her handbag. She wanted to give it to Aunt Mila, so she could bring it to her mother, but she saw Mrs. De Guzman's messages.

    [I saw the ambulance at your house. Are you okay? How about the kids?]

    Aurelia ought to reply back, giving her assurance, but when she opened the phone, she saw their message history. Mother contacted Mrs. De Guzman to open her door and give them candy - to satisfy Sylvia and maybe Aurelia as well. Aurelia didn't know what to do with that kind of knowledge, so she kept it in the back of her mind, buried along with her mother's bones.

    As for mother, she died without seeing her children again. She'd been doing extra shifts for the past couple of months because patient numbers related to COVID-19 increased. The lack of sleep, quick small snacks, no proper meals, and rushing from one patient room to the other, then she also needed to type reports and do evaluations and talk to doctors - all of this mental and physical exhaustion caught up with her, and that one night she focused on her children, she got sick and never recovered. 

    "I'm sorry." There was a creaking of a door. "I wished it could've gone differently."

    "Your 'sorry' wouldn't bring her back," Aurelia turned and met Sylvia's guilt-ridden eyes, "Just-, just don't mention not wanting our mm as our mom again. She doesn't deserve that."

    She nodded.