It was in the middle of the month of March last year that my daughter was sent home from Los Banos to flee from the spreading virus. I text her to say I was around the corner — a weekly routine for when I fetched her every weekend. It takes about an hour and thirty minutes to get home to Binan from Los Banos, calculated with the permanent traffic in Junction. That day it took us just a little less than one, sensing people already went home the day before.
That same night she slept like a log, straying from the usual. She never sleeps before midnight, whether she was studying or scrolling endlessly on her phone. She probably hasn’t been afforded a peaceful night since the start of the semester so the break must have been a godsend; or at least everybody thought for the first few weeks. From what I thought was a week-long break was grudging months of remote anguish.
We had our pantry still full during the first few months, with bits and pieces to snack on, since this was the only other thing we did to squabble with the long hours of staying idle. Little did I know I was going to be laid off work in the coming month. A bleak, dark shadow hung around the corner of the house, growing with every tick of the clock. Eventually, this was what our home nestled on. Each of us grew cold and distant. With no news of a vaccine coming, and thousands of the lives lost are reported in numbers, our chances of getting back to normal was dim.
The house felt like it stood on brittle scaffolding. Each day seemed as if one of us was edging into rupture. And it did. I was jolted awake by someone wailing in the wee hours of the morning. I rushed to her door. She sat on her bed, clutching a pillow. Though in the dark, I can see her head turn towards my direction, swinging her arms my way; signaling me to go away. I felt helpless not knowing how to relieve my own daughter from her pain. I shut the door in careful silence and slept soon after her crying waned to stillness. It is near death that stars explode in the silence of space.
