Trial 9: To be Continued

Finishing her story about how she met my papa, mama gave me time to process everything that she told me so far in consideration of the fact that everything is too much for me to take in.

I couldn't help but ask mama about what's bothering me, "Mama, where is that man now? Do you still contact each other? Is he…"

Before I could finish mama nods her head and says, "He's dead and his name is Mario. Before I get into the details about how, let me tell you how his case went on. Supposedly, he should have had faced criminal charges including attempted murder, uttering threats causing death, unlawful confinement, and illegal handgun possession, but since I told our office about what he knows and convinced them that he could be a key to finding out the identities of the people that we are pursuing, our office decided to temporarily halt the proceedings of his case on the condition that he shall be monitored closely and must have a tracking-device with him all the time. Meanwhile, days passed by quickly, and before I knew it, your papa managed to get a hold of my home phone number and address. Your papa happened to have an acquaintance who is very skilled in computers which is why he found me out. As a result, I'd reach home finding your papa waiting outside of the apartment building I used to reside in. It was too bad for him though because I just kept on sending him away until one night, he stopped coming and I wondered why. The following day, I started receiving letters and simple gifts. Your papa kept that going on for many months despite my ignorance of everything. He never stopped, so feeling guilty about it, I decided to give him a chance and agreed to have a lunch date with him. He…"

I interjected, "Finally! Mama. So what happened during your date?"

Mama replied, "You're excited about this, aren't you? I can't blame you though. During the date, your papa was a stuttering mess, but his gentle actions made me deem him as someone who poses no harm. That lunch date was followed by many more. Almost every week, he makes time to arrange a date for us, and every time of the day, he never forgets to send me a short message which either consists of asking how I am, words of encouragement, and sometimes funny jokes. Days turn to months. I didn't realize that we had been dating for fourteen months. Your papa proposed to me then. It wasn't something fancy, but not also a traditional one too. It was after our dinner date when he suddenly said that he is missing something. He leaned down to check on it and then, he claimed that he had dropped it below, near my seat so I offered to take what he had dropped. Once, I got the object he was referring to, I turned in the direction of his seat to show him the object but he was not in his seat anymore for he was already kneeling near my seat. The object that he dropped was a small red velvet box that had a sticky note to it with the words, "Please open." I opened the box and inside the box was another sticky note with the question, "will you accept me as your lifelong partner?" I turned to face your papa and he stayed in a kneeling position while holding out a simple engagement ring. I just nodded while muttering a 'yes' to him. Your papa couldn't believe it, that he remained in a kneeling position for almost a minute until I snapped him out of it and told him to stand up as the people around might notice us. Your papa didn't pressure me to wed him soon since he knew of the nature of my job and he even offered to help me in solving our case."

Hearing those kinds of stuff about my papa made me smile although half of me felt sorrowful knowing that he's no longer with us.

Mama begins talking again, "So, since there was no pressure to haste our wedding, I continued working in our office. After another few months of investigating, we finally had identified the people who operate the organization. Their leader appears to be Mario's former boss and his name is Dr. Aldrich Foley. We continued gathering information and as every day passed by, we slowly but surely uncovered Dr. Foley's headquarters. With the acquisition of the necessary information, we devised a plan to end his unlawful acts. The night when we executed our plan, our team successfully infiltrated Dr. Foley's lab. We had encountered a few enemies that we managed to subdue rather easily. Everything went smoothly that we found it so weird. Then, we heard a voice recording of Dr. Foley himself. He was laughing maniacally; telling us how he easily fooled us and that thanks to that he had prematurely planned his escape. According to him, what we defeated were just his dummies. He brazenly claimed that he had already set up their new laboratory. The last revelation he gave confirmed the reason why we failed the infiltration. There was a…

I interrupted mama, "someone from your office is his conspirator."

Mama nods and continues, "Anyway, back to the scene at that lab that we infiltrated, we decided to just report everything to our office and tried retrieving data from the lab's computers, believing that through that we would further our ideas about the activities done by Dr. Foley's group. We submitted them to the office but knowing that there was a traitor in our group, I secretly kept a copy of the data to myself. Our failed operation was like going back to square one except that we already had a target list. About the copy I got, I entrusted it to your papa. Your papa even made another copy of it. A week of reviewing the data in the office while trying to track Dr. Foley's new hideout got us nowhere. So with that, your papa and I agreed to make one day available for us to talk things over. When that day came, your papa and I discussed our wedding and we both approved of getting married 2 weeks from that time if things continued that way in our office and it did, so we pushed through with our wedding. Our wedding was very simple. Only a few of my colleagues were invited. Mario was also invited; he did help us out after all. I took a break from work. It was supposed to last for only a month but it was extended to 1 year because of my pregnancy. When I recovered enough from gestation and childbirth, I returned to work albeit my workload was only limited to clerical duties and I worked from home. One of our colleagues would go to our home to get my weekly report. That bored me for real. One afternoon, I got a call from an unknown number; it was Mario. He called to inform me of his request to have a private talk with me which I merited. During our talk, he confessed that he had felt that there was a conspirator among us, a few months after his incarceration but he couldn't tell it to me as soon as possible because he was scared and was unable to find a chance to do so. He disclosed that while he was waiting for a chance to tell me about it, he did his investigation by hanging out with my other colleagues, and by hanging out, he meant that he offered to assist them one at a time and open some small conversations with them. He said that it was difficult to pinpoint who the traitor is because all of them were so cautious and wise. Despite that, he promised to continue doing what he started and told me that he'll relay any progress he's made in different ways of communications to avoid arousing suspicions. Having seen his sincerity in his voice during our conversation, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and cooperated with him."

I was curious to know about mama's experience with motherhood while working at the same time so I asked, "um, mama, how was your experience raising me?"

Mama chuckled and replied, "I was about to tell you about that. Honestly, it was challenging because I was always alone at home. Your papa's work as a commercial pilot made him rarely home but he still managed to make time for us. He'd send short messages asking us how we're doing, and he'd also request a photo of the both of us. Overall, it was gratifying. When you turned 3, you would go near the piano. I figured you like the piano just as I do, so I'd play it for you and it would always make you happy; however, you were not contented with only listening to me playing the instrument so you nagged me into teaching you how to play it and right then and there, I started teaching you. You learned the basics quite faster than I did when I was your age so I decided to buy you many books and other learning aids. I was really happy and thought about quitting my job for good so I can just focus on being a mom but... something unexpected happened."

I wonder what happened then. It must be something grave.