The Hour of Daydreams by Renee Macalino Rutledge

Author:Renee Macalino Rutledge [Rutledge, Renee Macalino]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Forest Avenue Press
Published: 2017-01-30T05:00:00+00:00

12. Shapes in the Water

The Boatman arrives by the third sunrise, collecting lost souls stranded between worlds, shepherding them to the Land of the Dead. When she was not there to meet him, her sisters set up the market stall to watch over her in this new life. To us, this narrow market stall is in fact as wide as an ocean.

Tala herself closed the door to that infinite sea. She did not know that Dalisay, Imee, Ligaya, and her other sisters had been shut off with her, banding together against the fate she’d dealt them.

I did not wait long before she arrived with her husband, as I knew she would after the boy had delivered his warning. I invited them to the interior of the booth, sniffing the back of her neck and touching the hem of her skirt without their noticing. When they were seated, I sealed the back of the booth from view with a fresh white sheet substituting for a curtain.

Who am I? No one but a simple albularyo. One who can read this pregnant woman and her husband. A voice escaping a box, a voice escaping a dream. To many, I am no one.

I placed a bowl between them, with a rim as wide as a plate, filled with water and sprinkled with leaves. The wood-paneled walls around us were bare and aged, the spaces between the panels having widened over time, letting in the outdoor air. To me, there was no such thing as place in that moment, only distance and the illusion of time. In the back of the booth, the trinkets and bottles weren’t visible, but their smells were everywhere. She had settled on bubble gum, he on mint, and I smelled the aroma of ten different flowers, all of them associated with the occasions in my life I’ve had the misfortune to grieve.

I did not speak. I sensed his anger growing in the bristling of his eyes, his resistance to wait in silence like a fool. But soon his eyes left my face and settled on the water swirling through the bowl. Its movement mesmerized him. It took shape, many shapes, a scalloped edge here and a thumb-sized dent there. Its variations were limitless. Reflections in the water began as specks of light, then came to resemble the hot sun in a pair of eyes, staring at him. He saw Imee’s eyes, watching him. He sensed lobster claws snapping. He remembered Tala visiting with Imee, her relaxed gestures in the albularyo’s company, the boy playing with marbles at her feet.

He had hoped to find answers by coming here with her today. But instead, he’d found me, with these wild, unbrushed curls framing my murky eyes, seeing him as if from a great distance. He saw that they are old eyes, and frightening, older than the face in which they are embedded. He questioned who Imee was, who I was. Would Tala ever tell him of her otherworldly life, the life he

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