Mama and Papa now sleep in different
beds. “Your father snores,” Mama said.
Papa has been drinking a lot of sour juice
lately, his breath stinks when he tries to talk
to me. “If Mama and Papa have to live in
different houses, who would you live with?”
Papa asked before he fell asleep on the couch,
waiting for Mama to come home. As soon as
Mama got home, she told me to go to my room
and play with Chippy, the stuffed toy that they got me
for my seventh birthday. Mama interrupted
my little tea party when she knocked
on my door. “Papa snores louder now,
anak,” she said. Then she went outside the house
and went inside the green car that looked
a lot like my Ninong’s—he was Papa’s kumpare,
the one that he used to drink sour juice with.
I have never heard of Mama since then.
Reggie is taking up a Bachelor of Arts in English (Creative Writing) at the University of the Philippines Mindanao. She is a completer of the Special Program in Journalism and a graduate of the Humanities and Social Sciences of the Davao City National High School.