SNAPSHOTS OF MEMORIES

ENRIQUE SERRANO’S POV

“What do you mean by ‘D.J has fainted’?” I asked, even as I started packing up my things. Heart beating in my lungs, I was praying with every breath, ‘Oh my God, please.’

Just six weeks ago, my brother had tried to do something unspeakable himself; I could saw him lying in that hospital bed, his dark skin paler than it had ever been while I kept a vigil over him. Now, my thoughts zoomed all around the place even as my actions depicted single-minded focus. I wanted to shout, and break things. Inside my head, I was screaming. But I couldn’t actually do that. And I hated myself for how well I was able to keep everything together in moments of crisis like this.

Like two years ago, when I got the call that my parents and D.J had been in an accident, and things were serious – fatal – I’d felt like punching someone. Like breaking everything. But all I’d said over the phone was, “I see.”

As a result, the police had put me on the top of their suspect list for the first few weeks. Till today, Detective Ruiz, the policeman in charge of the case, still thought I did it. After all, I was the person who had the most to gain if everyone in my family died; I’d be in charge of Highlander Incorporation, without having to share my inheritance with anyone.

Except Elizabeth.

But the good policeman didn’t know about my father’s secret child. Very few people knew about her, and over the years her mother. Althea, had done an unbelievably good job of keeping her away from public eye. Now, if anything ever happened to D.J and me, that 9 year old would be the one to inherit everything. Worse, as her legal guardian, Althea would be the one in charge of Highlander Inc until her eighteenth birthday. Again, not many people knew about this, because we didn’t advertise family secrets.

But my parents’ accident had been a harsh wake-up call, and now I had some of Brian’s people watching Althea’s every move. Because I was supposed to be in that car crash too. Two years ago, I’d been at the same stupid fundraiser my parents had dragged D.J to. Althea too had been there, and she’d seen me leave the party with my parents. But my father and I had had a disagreement at the last minute; he’d wanted me to return to the party to charm up a potential investor, whose daughter just wouldn’t leave me alone, and I’d been too tired to even pretend to be enthusiastic about it. The last thing I’d said to him was, “Fine, Dad. I’ll do what you want. At the end of the day, everybody always does exactly what you want, don’t they?”

He’d given me a thin smile in return, as if he hadn’t heard the bitterness in my voice.

“Lock that contract in, boy,” he’d said with false lightheartedness. “Or they’ll be consequences.”

And now, as Ignacio drove me to the hospital where D.J had been rushed to, I couldn’t stop thinking about the damned man and his mistress, for two major reasons. One, Althea had way too much to benefit from the continued destruction of my family; for instance, if something happened and my brother was found somehow unfit right before his 18th birthday, some of the shareholders may move to prevent him from joining the board, despite having the right to 33% of Highlander Inc. They’d want me to continue to control his shares on his behalf, and I just wasn’t that kind of brother. D.J and I were going to rule Highlander together, whether he liked it or not. Besides, Lalanita was right, there was too much going on at the business front, and my little brother was going to have to start fighting his own battles for himself. There was only so much I could protect him from.

The second reason why I couldn’t stop thinking about Althea Villamor and her daughter was the photo album I’d discovered among my mother’s things. ‘Why on earth did my mother have pictures of Elizabeth as a baby among her things?’ I wondered over and over again. ‘And who the hell is M.D.R?’ Because at the back of one of those suspicious pictures, his mother had written, ‘E.S is G.D.R, TELL M.D.R!’ And the date marked on that last picture was June 17, the day of the accident; my mother’s last day alive.

I shelved my questions aside as the car came to a halt in the parking lot of the hospital. Then I power-walked right inside, because deep down inside, all I really cared about was my brother.

D.J SERRANO’S POV

I had one the worst dreams I always have:

“I want a divorce.” My mother spoke the words quietly – but firmly – in the backseat of the Rolls-Royce and I opened his eyes in the front seat, on the left side of a driver who is now struggling to maintain his professionalism. José Garcia is the man in the driver’s seat, the second son of a cleaning lady and retired security man from San Pablo; he really needs this job that pays too well because of the secrets he’s required to keep, so he must not react.

I, on the other hand, I’m the second son of the two people in the backseat of luxury car he’s driving. Yet, I don’t dare speak. Because my father is now watching my mother with barely leashed violence gleaming in his eyes; he is a powerful man seated with dangerous calm.

Like a snake ready to strike.

“Gwen…” The way he trailed off was a warning. And usually, he only needed to say her name.

My ears were plugged but no music was playing through my earphones. Before, I’d been pretending to sleep, pretending not to hear the tense words punctuated by tenser silence…enduring as usual, enduring with his mother. But now, after my mother has uttered those earthshattering words, I was fully present and aware. I marked every inhale and exhale she made in the ensuing silence, an elegant woman in her lovely black dress. I didn’t even realize that I was holding my breath, eyes fixed on the rear view mirror; on my erratic father’s wrathful eyes and clenched hands. ‘He’s far enough from my mother,’ I think. ‘For now.’

The driver too was holding his breath, probably remembering that first time my mother flinched away from his touch on his first day of work. He’d only reached out his hands to help out with her shopping bags, but the stark terror in her eyes, it had rocked him to the core. For hers wasn’t the flinching away of the rich, of disgust at the idea of being touched by someone far beneath status (“Lord only knows where his hands has been,” he’d once heard from a previous employer, when he reached out to pass a parcel). No, this was something else; something that had disturbed Jose Garcia enough that he’d called his mother that night, just to hear her voice, and remind himself that not all women lived that way. Not all women had to be tagged and tracked, a record kept for every minute of their every day, not just “because of their safety” but because of their husbands’ obsession. He needed to remind himself that his own mother was strong; his mother lived boldly and colorfully in hard-won freedom and love, though she didn’t have a billion pesos in her bank account.

Later, like everybody else that worked in Casa Serrano, Jose had heard the rumors and the blood-curling screams that came from the mansion in the dead of the night, and he’d seen the shadow of bruises underneath my mother’s makeup in the mornings, right after the doctors had come in and gone. And he’d known. He’d known what was going on without needing to be told. They all did.

Now, he drove in silence.

“I mean it this time, Enrique. I already have the papers. I’ve gotten a lawyer. I want… I want to be free.”

Enrique Serrano Snr., his father, chuckled bitterly. “Free?” There is laughter in his gravelly voice, but there’s no humor. “You want to be free? You have everything already, Gweneth. Everything!”

Jose flinched as my father yelled angrily. I flinched too, and there’s so much going on inside of me. I’m feeling too many things – joy, anger, elation, fear, excitement (‘Is she finally leaving him? She has left before, a number of before, but this time around, she actually hired a lawyer?’) – and he suspected that his father was thinking the same thing. For some reason, the only person not scared at all, it seemed, was his mother.

“I want nothing from you. You only have to sign the dotted line.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I’m serious, Enrique.”

Then, there’s fear in his father’s eyes. Stark terror. For it was fear that drove his father’s violence and obsession; fear that one day, everybody would leave him, even the one he loved the most.

“If it’s because of what happened at the party-” And D.J can’t help but remember details of things he’d rather forget. Althea, and her son. Althea with the blood-red heels – his father’s mistress, one of many, who happened to think she was somehow special because she’d managed to secure a child – showing up at the fundraiser. Althea, who’d been bold enough to kiss his father on the cheek in front of the German investors he was trying to woo. Then, there was his best friend Mario, Althea’s son, who’d shown up with his arm around D.J’s girlfriend. Although, he supposed Josephine was his ex-girlfriend now. After all, she’d broken up with him by text message just that morning.

‘Daniel, there’s no future for us,’ the short message had read. ‘I want a break.’

But there she’d been at the stupid fundraiser, laughing at everything Mario had whispered in her ear. Laila had been offended on his behalf, but it wasn’t as if he could trust Laila too. Ever since Lucy Godenzano – Laila’s big sister – had married a start-up owner against her parents’ wishes, his childhood friend was suddenly everywhere; trying to force romantic moments, and a deeper connection between them, because now, his father and all the elders had gotten it into their head that the alliance they’d been trying to force by using Rico and Lucy was still possible if they managed to get him and Laila together.

But that was his personal problem. Right now, his parents were arguing in the backseat.

“It’s not about that!” His mother was shouting. “I know about Elizabeth! Enrique, how could you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, woman, but you’ll do well to keep quiet!” His father glanced briefly at the rear-view mirror, and their eyes met for a second, before D.J looked away. He’d learnt at a very young age that the worst thing he could do was to interfere whenever his parents were fighting, no matter how violent it got. Except when things got really bad, but then Rico would scold him as his body was covered in bruises. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ he’d say bitterly. ‘Mom came back to him. She chose this life. She made her bed.’

But Rico was a hypocrite; he himself ALWAYS interfered, even when things weren’t bad. Neither of them liked to see their mother suffer, and on some level, even their father knew that his reign of terror was coming to an end.

“How could you do that to your own son?” Their mother was asking their now, brokenly. “How could you take his child away from him?”

And D.J was confused. Even as he lay dreaming, he knew that something was wrong. He’d never dreamt about this part before. But it was a real memory. As he dreamt it now, with what he knew about Veronica now, it all made sense to him. ‘But how on earth had he forgotten before?’ He wondered, still trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together; feeling as if he was still forgetting something. Or there was still some major detail missing

“Enrique was not ready to be a father, and that Veronica girl was an abysmal parent,” his father growled in reply to his mother. “I did them both a favor by stepping in when I did, and you should be thanking me!”

Then his mother laughed bitterly, reminding him of Rico in his most defiant moments. “They are both better parents than you will ever be. You and Althea truly deserve each other, and I am leaving you with my children, and grandchild. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

‘Whoa, what on earth is she talking about?’ D.J thought in the memory, and even in the part of him that knew this was a dream. ‘What grandchild?’

But his father obviously knew because he smirked evilly. “I guess we’ll see. I’d like to see you try to leave me with no money, knowing full well that I’d disinherit your bratty kids if you ever step a foot away from Casa Serrano without my approval. I’d just like to see you try, Gwen-”

Then, WHAM!

Wonder of wonders, his mother slapped his father right across the face, shouting, “You evil bastard!”

His father raised his hand, ready to return the strike when the car swerved wildly.

None of them had seen the heavy-duty truck coming until it’s too late. Jose Garcia swerved the car at the last minute, but then it came back. Gunning straight for them. Over and over again. Tires screeched loudly against asphalt as the driver tried to take control of the situation. But they couldn’t escape. They didn’t stand a chance.

CRASH!

Again and again.

When it was over, D.J lay bleeding. He was on the edge, slipping out of consciousness when he heard it: the sound of someone’s approaching footsteps on the broken glass, as his mother bled and bled…

“Help. Please, help!” he’d moaned in pain.

But his voice hadn’t been loud enough to be a whisper, as the footsteps on glass faded away. As a matter of fact, he saw the boots – tanned brown leather with thick soles – but he’d never remembered those details until now.

Because when he’d woken up in the hospital with his leg broken and rolls of bandage wrapped around his bloody head, some of his memories had been missing.

“Daniel! Daniel, wake up!” His mother’s voice whispered in his ear now. He was no longer dreaming. He felt her gentle touch on his brows, and he remembered that day when he’d been 10 years old; when he’d cracked open his eyes and seen his mother and Enrique standing over him with two travel bags and a suitcase packed. When they’d dared to be happy in Cebu.

But that was years ago. His mother was dead. Still he hoped.

“Mom?” He croaked now, reaching for his glasses. Forgetting that he’d gone straight to ‘Emilio’s Kitchen’ after school, so his contacts were still in (his father had hated him wearing the recommended glasses in public, because “it made him look weak,” so, he’d adopted the habit of…not wearing it around others that weren’t family).

“No, my child. It’s your grandmother. Lalanita.”

“Lalanita?”

His head was a little fuzzy. “What are you doing? Where am I?”

“Have some water to drink, my love.” His grandmother pressed a glass of water to his lips, and then suddenly, D.J found himself staring at his late grandfather, who was standing right beside her with a warm smile on his face.

At first, D.J returned the smile. Then, his brain realized what he was seeing and tried to process things.

Then, his brain couldn’t manage to process it.

“AHHHHHH!” He screamed, as Enrique came running into the hospital room.

“D.J! D.J! What is it?”

All he could do was to point and stare at his grandfather’s ghost, screaming as everywhere dissolved into chaos. Then, Emmy came into the hospital room, and she was the last he saw. Before fainting again.