The Haunted Streets of Love and Memory

She was dead. 

Those were the only words that had registered in Amor's ears as he sunk deeper into the depths of the silence ringing all around him. He hadn't felt how he had put down the phone or his breathy whispered reply of, “I’m fine,” to his cousin on the other end of the line. 

She was dead and he was a whole world away. 

But if he was in the mood for being honest, Amor had been worlds away from her a long time ago. 

A broken promise ago. 

“Are you going back home?” His tita, Rose, had asked in their mother tongue as she had served them dinner. 

They ate on a short rattan table - an antique from their ancestral home in Laguna - just long enough for the two of them, and a perfect fit in their small apartment by the San Diego beachfront. 

Usually, they would’ve eaten Domino’s or leftover lunch but, for some reason, tonight, it was filled with heaping bowls of nilaga and white rice. 

Home food. 

Amor had given her an appreciative smile after they had prayed and started to eat. But as expected, the comfort food failed to sap the chill from his bones though they filled his stomach well. 

After a long moment of silence, he had replied, “I guess I will.” And that had been that. 

Now, as he felt the wheels of the airplane skid onto the landing strip, there was a large uncomfortable writhing knot in the pit of his stomach. 

It had started as a barely-there-emotion in America as soon as he had heard about Barb’s funeral. And the tight PAL business class seat, back to the Philippines had only served to jostle him awake from the sweaty fever dreams of the past. 

Words for what he could not name haunted Amor in the airport bathrooms, but as soon as he stepped outside and inhaled the Manila smoke they floated into existence. 

The strange sights of the ever-changing city, exorcised the past for a moment before they ran amuck again. 

“You back pram obersis?” The cabbie asked him, the regional accent butchering the English, as they cruised away from the terminal. 

Amor understood the question just the same. Have you finally come home?

“Yes,” he answered. Before he could stop the words, he admitted, “I’m coming home.” 

Outside the windows, the nostalgic asphalt traffic of the Guadalupe bridge and the nighttime beauty of the Pasig river greeted his vision. 

Makati. Home. 

The words seemed to erupt from somewhere. 

Longing. 

Misery. 

Hope.

Pain. 

Hate. 

Love.

Barbara.

"The city has changed," he half-whispered to himself. As if in answer, the lights of unfamiliar malls and new karinderias twinkled in the heavy heat of the Friday night. 

“Why are you back?” The cab driver asked again, as they roamed around Bonifacio Global City. “Family reunion?” 

“No,” Amor replied as he surveyed the mall-strewn spaces. “It’s a funeral.” An awkward silence followed, which the driver graciously ended with a heartfelt, “Condolences, sir.”

Amor nodded his thanks before giving the fare with a large tip and signaling for the driver to stop. 

He stepped out of the cab with nothing but a backpack and his clothes with him. 

After all, he didn’t plan on staying home long. 

The funeral home was back on the bridge, but he had wanted to walk the streets before arriving to greet Barbara’s bereaved family and friends. It was easier here, in a city he had once called home. 

He had long loved and hated it for everything that had it had given and taken away. 

Without even thinking about it, his feet trudged the paths back to his old house, his mind following the memories that laced the dirty sidestreets and alleyways. Endless days, afternoons, and nights of running and bike rides and games as children played in his memory as he walked. 

It was on these streets that they had met as childhood nemeses - Barbs, the chubby girl with choco mamon eyes and a bright white smile - and him. 

Rom, the thin sun-tanned boy with a mischievous smile. Just Rom. 

When the summer days fled away and the fledgling awkward high school years found them, Barbs and Rom were in high school. Looking at each other again with new eyes in the classrooms and the random nooks of the city that they found themselves in. 

A larger world, for sure, but the strangeness became familiar as they rediscovered each other on the streets of the city. 

Amor turned a corner that was a few streets away from his old house. These were the ways that he and Barbara used to take to and from their school. Once mundane roads soon became the world, populated with the shoots that had blossomed into the fleeting love that only teenagers can understand and live. 

Illegal late-night dates and sneaking her into her house undetected in the early hours of the morning. Food trips by the bakery and in the nearby malls that they had long since memorized. 

Everywhere had been home for the both of them. 

“Promise me that you’ll always stay,” Barbara had asked of him, one late night. 

It was 1 in the morning and her midnight hair was a wavy waterfall over her chocolate brown eyes. Prom had just finished and her bright blue dress shimmered in the darkness as he walked her home. 

Amor stopped for a moment, in the middle of the street, just as he had then. That early morning he had clasped her hands tightly before promising her always and forever. 

That was the night they first kissed, and the last night that he saw the girl he had loved innocently. 

The next time he saw Barbara, a few months later because he had left for Laguna with his family, she was a weeping pregnant mess. Still, he loved her, though it was different now, not the innocent and carefree type they had gotten accustomed to. He was a man now, who cared for and fought for her every day. 

In the too-short years that they had been together, Barbs had never told him where or when it had happened.

Only that there three men and she was alone. 

Her pained admission broke him, he had left her alone.

Amor swore that he wouldn’t do that again. It did not matter that the child wasn't his, he would love the both of them just the same.

The child was born after 7 months and died a week later. So had Barbara.

Soon enough Amor did as well, each time he stepped onto the streets plagued with the ghosts of what he could have done. The night air was the cold clammy skin of a dead infant and the sounds of passing jeepneys and tricycles were fearful screams in his ears. 

He knew that he hated the city then, every inch of dirt road and filth a reminder of his failure to stay. So he had left and for twenty years he hadn't looked back.   

“Amor, is that you?” A shocked voice woke him from his stupor. 

It was Emil, an old friend from high school who had lived two streets away from his house. Emil gave him a scruffy gray mustache-lined smile while he scratched his beer belly that protruded from the loose basketball jersey that he wore. 

“Hi, Emil,” Amor greeted. “I heard that-”

“Yeah, Barbs died a week ago.” Before Amor could ask he continued, “The funeral is by the bridge didn’t you hear?” 

“No, I didn’t.” He lied with a pained smile.

“The whole family is there, no one is at the house if that’s where you wanted to go… You know the way?” Emil asked again. 

“Yeah, I’ll just walk there,” Amor reassured him before moving into the direction of the bridge. 

“Wait!” Emil called after him, “Rom!” Amor turned around. 

“After you left for work in the States,” Emil scratched his head, “None of us ever thought you’d come back home. Not even Barbs. But you’re back and I think she would’ve loved that.” He laughed then, nervous and unsure, the type of laugh people gave when they knew they were overstepping their bounds but still continued to speak. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re back.” 

Amor offered a thank you before walking the uphill way to the funeral home on Guadalupe bridge. 

And as he sweated and walked along the dirty dark streets one thing surprised him. Makati nights used to bring with them a mix of smoke and city lights and the bone-chilling apprehension of the night it had somehow all went wrong.

But tonight, as he walked the streets of a city he had loved and grown to hate and found his way to the body of the woman he had loved his whole life. Amor realized that he could name the feeling that was unraveling in his heart. 

It had been a calcified mass of hate for the longest time but tonight he guessed he could call it forgiveness. Or love.

For what is love without the healing that only time can bring? 

As the seconds ticked closer to a new day, Amor ran on childlike feet the rest of the way to the funeral home. And beside him, the memory of his child and his love ran freely with reckless and joyful abandon.