5 Choice

I felt a familiar wind on my cheek.

This time, I woke up next to a young alatiris tree. The scent of the sweet fruit barely permeated the air. I looked ahead of me and saw the red mansion, but it wasn't red yet. The roof was yet to be finished, too.

When I sat up, a small child was looking at me with her big brown eyes. Her face covered with streaks of mud.

"Are you alright. Tita?" she asked, touching my cheeks. "You have a wound on your cheek."

I touched my own cheek and felt the cut there from my first visit here. I looked down at my body and saw my pregnant self from my own time.

"Grace?" I asked as she looked at me curiously. "You're so young."

"Do you know me, tita?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

I pulled her in for a hug and sobbed on her shoulder.

"What's wrong, tita? Did someone hurt you?"

"No, no one hurt me," I said, pulling away. She sat down beside me.

"Why were you sleeping on the grass? Don't you have a home?" she asked, picking a leaf from the small tree.

"I do have a home," I said with a laugh. "Why are you out here all alone?"

"Papa is mad again," she said, crumbling the leaf in her hand. "He was like this when mama left. I'm afraid to go home."

I took her hand in mine and squeezed it.

"You're going to become a mama soon," she said, rubbing my belly.

"I think I already am," I said, rubbing my belly. "I went here before I could meet my daughter."

"What's her name?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know yet," I said, feeling guilty for not deciding on a name just yet.

"Do you love her?" she asked.

"I think I do."

"I don't know if my mama loved me."

"Of course she loved you," I told her, taking her cheeks in my palms and looking into her big brown eyes. "You're here, right?"

"She's not," she said bitterly.

"She made a choice," I told her. "You'll understand when your turn to choose comes."

"What if I don't? What if I can't?"

"Grace, don't forget that you are strong. You are brave. You are loved." Eve smiled, tears stinging the corners of her eyes as she hugged the child before her.

"But who loves me?" she said innocently.

"I love you," I told her. "And even if you feel like you have no choice…" I pulled away and looked at her face. "…you can choose whoever you want to be. You always have a choice."

"What about you? Who loves you?" she asked.

"My mother and my Lola Amor loves me," I said. "You love me, too, right?"

"I don't even know you!"

I laughed. "You will very soon," I said. "My name is Eve."

"My name is Grace, but you already know that," she said, rubbing my belly again. "Have you decided on your daughter's name yet?"

"I think I have," I told as I poked the tip of her nose. "But I'm not gonna tell you cause you're gonna give it your own daughter."

She scowled at me, and I laughed at her.

"Grace, I have to tell you something very important," I began to tell her seriously. "Very bad things will happen here soon."

"What bad things?"

"I don't think you'd want to know," I began, remember what she told me in the basement sometime in the future. I held her by her shoulders. "Take better care of yourself, okay?" I took out a panyolito from my pocket and wiped her face. "You have to. For yourself."

She cocked her head to the side again as if in deep thought. "Do I know you?" she asked. For a minute, I thought I saw a look of recognition in her eyes, but it disappeared before I could see for sure.

"No, not yet, at least," I said. I felt a yawn come up inside me. "I might go away again soon," I let the yawn out.

"Will I ever see you again?" she said, matching my yawn, too.

"We will," I said confidently. "You can find me here under the alatiris tree."

Her eyes became droopy. She leaned on my side and fell asleep.

My own eyelids fluttered in the wind that lifted the slight smell of alatiris all around us.

"I love you, Lola Grace," I mumbled as I yawned again. "Thank you for everything."

I closed my eyes to meet the darkness for one last time, hoping that if and when I open them again, I see the future that I and the women before me have freely chosen.