Gilded Cage

Would you leave a man who gave you the life you wished? The one who gave you the life your mother always dreamed of but never had?

For Gia, it would be rather stupid to walk away from a man who saved her and her family from poverty for good. Everyone would easily think that leaving him was a ridiculous thing. For years, she tried to convince herself to stay and be the most loyal, faithful, and loving wife, leaving her entire life behind for a new world she knew nothing about.

Because you were married, right? You would do everything and anything for your beloved, traveling across the seven seas, becoming the best version of yourself for your future family. To heal yourself, for better or for worse. ‘Til death do us part. That was the vow, wasn’t it?

Besides, God was there when she tied the knot at twenty-four with a promise not to let this man go. For her family, this was her golden ticket to find freedom and possibly true love abroad.

Was it an impulsive decision? Maybe. Did she regret it? No. Was it a mistake? She wanted to say ‘Yes’, but in hindsight, she would rather believe that her young self thought it was the best decision she could make at that time. The same decision that had been weighing on her for a while. For years.

Too late to back out and change things around, she argued, suddenly wanting to take those words back. Feeling her souring stomach, she was nowhere near turning things differently and exploring her heart’s wishes, let alone welcoming a new, drastic, uncertain chapter in her forties. She was at the top of her game, in the heated momentum. Manifested success was at hand, right on her fingertips. There was no way she would stop mid-way.

But, for God’s auspicious ways, she found herself asking a thousand questions she couldn’t answer, watching her man talking with his distinct confidence with a cigar in his right hand and a Black Americano on the other, like the usual breakfast routine. The same scene she saw in the last twenty years since she moved away.

The only scene she could remember, that is, if she were to leave.

Was she ready to bring him the Truth that he deserved to know? Gia didn’t want to answer that. Not now, she conceded, tilting her iced tea, sipping the dark brown liquid as she threw her eyes on the blue Mediterranean coastlines.

Besides, her husband had planned this trip for months because he loved to bring his beautiful hottie to the bright sunshine after months of Alpine cool. He must have assumed her time alone in the mountains was a nightmare, so he brought her to a coastline to meet the present civilization, believing she had become so reclusive.

Noting the excitement flooding his cheeks, she wished to feel the genuine appreciation of the gesture. But somehow she couldn’t, knowing the excitement faded every year. Because each time he left for an extended business trip, she got used to being alone. And every time they met, the first thing they would do was to disagree about anything under the sun. She got used to it. His walkouts never hurt her anymore.

The silence? It never punched her heart the way it did before. Her eyes didn’t burn with tears, unlike before. Something changed. Something drifted away.

Now, all she could do was to empty her glass and ask the waiter for another iced tea, then pretend she had it all going; that nothing lurked beneath the surface, beneath the casual ‘Yeses’ and smiling nods.

Nothing changed in the last twenty years of her life except the most significant turnaround that happened overnight more than ten years ago, she argued. Their small online flea market business suddenly flourished after years of nothing but chaos. As if God had heard their prayers, their clientele grew and expanded so much that they were financially secure. So safe she felt her hand itching to buy a plane ticket to fly back home.

She thought, yeah, her husband was a cunning man who went through hell for most of his life. A reformed gangster-turned-millionaire who disappointed his mother way too many times and got himself up again. An admirable man who never gave up on anything he desired, no matter how many times the heavens threw thorns along his way.

Yet, at this moment, the praise her mouth once wore, slipping them on autopilot, never smelled the same. All she cared about was how she could reschedule her appointments for an impromptu vacation. Knowing she was fully booked for six months, she thought she should be in her room, grab her planner, and call her assistant.

It was as if her heart screamed back at her, resenting herself for saying the sacred ‘Yes’ that young. If her twenty-year-old self weren’t the way she was, she wouldn’t be here, sitting with someone who only knew how to talk about his thoughts and feelings, while forgetting he had a human wife.

“You’ve been silent, Gia. What’s wrong?” His voice snapped her senses back. Her posture snapped into place. Her eyes rounded.

Oh, dear. She sighed her silent cry, wondering if she had to endure another minute that felt like forever. At forty-one, she found herself keeping a forced smile while swallowing the Truth like toothpicks in her throat. “Nothing. I’m listening,” she stuttered.

“Am I talking too much?” He cocked an eyebrow, shifting his weight on his seat as he pulled himself closer to her. His voice grew meaningful as he held her hand. “I’m really sorry.”

She yanked her hand and grabbed her fork and knife to make a thin slice of her well-done beef steak. “For what?” She shoved a forkful and wiped her mouth with a clean towel.

He sighed. “I know I talk a lot. But I’m just excited. I can’t help it.” His shoulders raised to his ears, his face glowed more than usual. “This is our vacation. You should be excited, too, right?” Whatever he saw on her face sprang an evenly spread frown. “You’re not?”

She wanted to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t stretch. Her brain told her a thousand reasons, way too many times to walk away and leave forever, outlining them like an organized library.

“You’re not.” His voice lowered. Convinced.

“I do. I swear, I do,” she cut him off in a slight panic. She wanted to say more, yet her heart plundered her body, sneaking in little whispers at the back of her consciousness, saying, ‘Stay while you can.’

She wanted to spill her heart right there, only to halt when he laughed, shaking his head as if her feelings weren’t a serious matter. “Why are you laughing?” she asked when she wasn’t trying to be funny.

“You never change, do you? God. We’ve been together for twenty years. You’re acting like that when you’re pissed.” He rested the emptied porcelain on the saucer and grabbed the folded newspapers at the edge of the table. His eyes on the headlines. “I know when you’re in deep thoughts, when you’re sad, when you’re not.”

Her eyebrows arched, seeping the arrogance in her skin. “I didn’t know you were a psychic.”

“I’m your husband, remember? So I know you too well, my love. You can’t hide anything from me.”

Right. He was her husband, after all. Secrets never had a space in their space. But something was missing. Something died. And she didn’t know what it was. Or maybe she knew, but her brain wouldn’t acknowledge it. She wasn’t ready to face the Truth, nor was she willing to see the consequences, though the butterflies weren’t there anymore to keep the fire burning.

Could she say those to him, she asked herself, wanting to throw the multi-million-dollar question with an increasingly aching heart that clung to her chest. She gulped to ease her parching throat, her crying soul. As the sensations intensified, she took her iced tea and sipped through the straw, mentally preparing herself.

“There’s something I need to tell you.” The words barely left her mouth.

Immediately, his phone rang. “Excuse me.” His attention on the call. “Oh, hi, Miss Sanchez. Yes, I’m on vacation right now. Right, I’m sorry. It’s a short notice.” He lifted his index finger, pointing at her. When she nodded in answer, he rose from his seat and stood with his palm inside his pocket, facing the vast sea. He glanced at her with his palm up, as though telling her to step aside.

Like usual, she wasn’t the priority. Her feelings and thoughts were never meant to be his numero uno.

“Sorry about that.” He grabbed the seat after a time, slipping the phone back to his back pocket, and sat with his torso closer to her. “Where did we stop again?”

“Never mind.”

She caught his pause and a silent surprise. Without saying a word, he tore his gaze and retook the newspaper, then leafed through the following page without anticipation.

Maybe because he was old. Ten years older than her. And mature men never chase. They had already learned enough lessons to act like that. Stoic, uncaring, detached. Unlike the younger males who would beg and kneel for a merciful love if she were to cheat.

As silence thickened, the little whispers quickly turned into high-key screams underneath her skull. The longer she kept her mouth closed, the more this thing was eating her whole. Desperate, she carefully rested the silverware on the ceramic and looked at him, determined.

“Well, I said there’s something I need to tell you.”

His face grew serious, though his eyes remained on the page. “What is it?”

She cleared her throat and gazed at the Mediterranean Sea. “I’m planning to return to the Philippines next week, and I already bought the ticket,” she said, noting his loud pause, his lightning bolt shock. The reading and skimming stopped dead. The look on his face shifted, like he wanted to scream and lash out but couldn’t.

He expelled an awkward laugh as he folded the newspaper and put it back where it was before. “Why so sudden? You never told me about this. You should’ve told me earlier.”

“I wanted to, but you’ve been so busy.”

“We both are. But how can you…” The shock must have reached his head, causing his brilliant brain to blank, she assumed, noting his paling face. His palm met his mouth, stunned at the confession.

“Gia, we’re supposed to be—Seriously?”

Pretending she hadn’t seen anything, she kept her composure tight, like her tone when she spoke. “I know it’s hard to understand right now. But please, let me explain .”

He stared daggers at a second. “Now? We’re on vacation. You can’t be serious.”

Her body trembled, holding the strength of his gaze. “Anyway, my family wants to see me. My sister called me days ago and told me to return. So I bought a ticket when I had the chance.”

“Come on. You just returned last year, and now you’re going home again?”

She dipped her gaze to her plate, suddenly regretting what she said. She shouldn’t have said it, thinking it was better to explain her honest thoughts and feelings when she was gone. Sensing her shaken emotional safety, she went on, cautiously throwing her glances at him. “I miss them. If I can, I’d like to stay there for as long as I can.”

“When will you come back? You know, you can’t stay there for more than six months. Otherwise, your visa—”

“I know. Don’t worry. I’ll come back.”

“When?”

Only when he asked did she feel the punch in her heart. Her body trembled, leaving her confused and well-blanketed with agonizing cries from head to toe. It was as though her impulses met her consciousness for the first time, and her brain froze.

“We’ll see.” The only thing she could say under pressure.

“We’ll see? Are you kidding me right now?”

“Like you always say, you’re a smart man.”

“But I need you at that meeting!”

“You’ll always know the best business decision. You can definitely do things on your own.”

“But we built it together from scratch. Together. You said we have to be partners, right? And now, you’re leaving me for months? Really? Or is it because of somebody else?”

Her teeth gritted, wanting to hide the words behind her mouth. Out of a million thoughts, her mouth slipped the one she never thought she would speak out loud, in broad daylight, on a summer holiday vacation, in front of everyone. “I feel like it’s time for us to separate.”

Gobsmacked. The only thing she could describe him right now. But she said nothing, patiently waiting for him to speak his mind. He expelled an exasperated sigh. “Are you divorcing me?” His voice sharpened.

“No. I didn’t say that. You did.” Her chest ached, feeling the pang of his tone and his peaching face. Her eyes burned, welling with tears around her lids. She blinked, conjuring her sheer will to swallow those tears. Her fingers curled tighter around the straw. “We both agreed not to say that word ever again. Yet, you did.”

He scoffed and rested his hands on his waist, wanting to laugh, but couldn’t. “If this is what you want, fine. Leave if you want. But why now? We’re doing fine. You can’t be leaving anywhere.”

“I just want to go back home and see my family. That’s all. Is it too much to ask?” she said, standing, in her steady composure, with her chin up, though deep inside, she wanted to scream the hell out of him. Her eyes shook, wanting to cry and bawl like a goddamn damsel in distress. Her fingers curled into fists before she grabbed her handbag and fled the restaurant.

“Gia, please.” He must have said something in between, but her brain was too loud to articulate the words.

Tears flooded her face, the unsaid words wanting to spill out. But her frustration with life got the best of her. Her feet ran towards the sea, wanting to lay her toes on the wide, vast ocean, wishing the waves could take her sorrows away. When she couldn’t handle it, she screamed her heart out, letting the burn in her soul smash her into pieces.

Out of nowhere, she felt a soft touch on her left hand. She swirled her head in that direction. Immediately, she stepped back, wanting to let go of his touch. “You shouldn’t have followed me.”

His voice lowered. “My dear, I understand you miss them a lot. Living in Switzerland has never been easy on you.”

“Do you? Really? Do you truly understand how I feel? Have you ever listened to me?”

“But you can’t just be doing anything you want. Not now.”

“I don’t care! I just want to go home, Alessandro. Okay?” Stunned at the way she said his name, the manner she raised her voice, she blinked, letting that sink into her head. Because she had never raised her tone like that before.

Whatever the reasons were, maybe her soul knew she was at the tipping point of no return. Maybe her heart still yearned to save something she couldn’t. Maybe from an eternal abyss.

He clucked, approaching closer, and hugged her tightly. “Fine. I’ll let you go back. But promise me, you’ll return, okay?”

“I will.”

He eased away and cupped her face with both hands. “We’ve gone through a lot together, so you can’t leave me. I love you,” he paused, like he was expecting an easy ‘I love you, too.’ For some reason, her mind blanked, leaving her confused about whether it felt right or not.

He must have sensed it, for he sighed and offered his meaningful eyes. “Nobody understands you better than I do.”

A warm air of disappointment flared her nose. “You don’t.” She politely removed his hands from her face. “I’m not a young girl anymore. I’m forty-one now, not twenty-four.”

The rest of his sentence suddenly warped in her head, now wanting to stop the narrative and run to the hotel room, then lock herself up in the toilet room and cry. Though it was the first day of their first-ever vacation together in years, though the sunrise was stunning from the far horizon and the people’s smiles were a pleasant sight, she was ready to pack up her luggage and drive to the nearest airport.

“Do you still love me?” Alessandro asked, halting her wandering mind. She held her hands in a way that massaged her achy heart a little bit, easing her thundering system. Eyeing their wedding rings, she nodded, thinking it was easier to hide the little whispers under the skin that way.

Because, in the end, he was the one who gave this life. Without him, there would be no Swiss luxury, no yearly Mediterranean vacation, no God’s blessing, as you would call it. That was Gia’s life. Her life in a gilded cage.