Chapter 68

Luz.

It’s Sunday and Luz is in church. They’re singing “Oh Mahal Kita Sa Panginoon” and Luz is thinking of Jomari as she sings, “Oh I love you with the love of the Lord, I can see in you the glory of our King.”

As soon as she realizes, she chases the thought away. She shouldn’t be thinking of handsome young men when she should be paying attention to God. But the words suit Jomari very well. She can definitely see the glory of God in this handsome, generous, kind and brave young man.

It’s a shame that she hasn’t seen him again since their chance meeting at the park. She still hasn’t got his contact details—or any plausible excuse to contact him.

The church has the shape of a semicircle and Luz is standing on one of the two side sections, so when she looks straight ahead, on the other side of the altar, she sees the people on the other side. They’re singing two, and everyone is reading the words on the large projectors on the walls.

Luz doesn’t need to read the words. She knows them very well. This is the parish’s weekly Filipino service and this song is one of the ones Luz used to sing in her church back home, so she knows it by heart. So her gaze wanders onto the people on the other side of the altar. And something snags it.

Or better, someone.

This person is also looking at her. In fact, he was looking at her even before her gaze fell on him. It’s Jomari. He has seen her and he has recognized her.

Luz smiles and he smiles back. Luz’s heart does a little somersault. Had she been thinking about him during the song because her eyes had already registered him before her brain had properly done so?

All through the rest of the service, Luz is distracted. She can’t help thinking that he’s there, on the other side of the church. Will he stay back at the end and come and say hello? Maybe he’ll struggle with the stairs. She had better go to him. Will he wait for her, will he still be there if she waits till the end of the final hymn, like she always does?

This service feels longer than usual, even if Luz knows that it can’t be because this priest always gives short sermons.

“Trust in God...He holds you in the palm of his hand...”

Snippets of the sermon manage to seep into Luz’s overagitated brain. Yes, she will trust that, if God has let her meet Jomari again, He won’t whisk him away at the end of the service.

Finally, the last hymn arrives. Luz belts it out. She sings it a little faster than the band plays it, feeling that they are going too slowly.

She never likes it when people start leaving the church before the end of the final hymn and she likes it even less today. Where are all these people in such a hurry to get to? Why are so many leaving now, clogging the aisles so much that she can’t keep her eyes on Jomari?

When she loses sight of him, she leaves her pew even if the song is still going, and joins the crowd that she was complaining about up to a moment ago.

She had counted the pews. Jomari was on the fifth from the front to the left. But now that she’s reached the fifth pew, Jomari isn’t there. He’s not at the fourth or at the sixth pew either. He’s nowhere to be seen.

Luz’s heart sinks.

Why would he leave without saying hello after he smiled at her? He has clearly seen her.

Or maybe it wasn’t Jomari but someone who looked like him, and she has smiled at a complete stranger who, perhaps, wasn’t even smiling at her but at someone behind her.

She sighs at her own stupidity and heads for the stairs that take down to the church hall. There, she’ll find her friends and a feast of curry puffs and noodles, fish cakes and chicken wings, fried rice and all sorts of snacks laid out by the parishioners for everyone. Luz feels like she could do with a curry puff or two.

She’s just filling up her wobbly paper plate when someone taps her shoulder.

“Wait a moment, I need one more,” she says, piling one more curry puff onto her already full plate.

She turns around. It wasn’t one of her friends. It’s Jomari.

“Oh. Hi.”

Luz feels her cheeks warm up and she wishes she hadn’t piled her plate quite to high, or that there was somewhere to hide it.

“Hello.”

“I thought I had seen you in church earlier, but then you disappeared. I thought you had left.”

“I had left to come and find you, but you were nowhere to be seen.”

Luz’s heart flutters a little. And she had thought he had left without saying hello!

“Er... this plate, it’s not all for me, it’s for sharing with my friends...” she lies. “Or with you!” she adds brightly.

“I thought I was one of your friends,” he says with a smile.

“Of course!”

Now Luz is desperate to find a quiet place to sit down with Jomari and share the food, away from anyone she knows and who might come over and join them.

Bulan and the others should be wise enough to keep away, if they spot her. But other parishioners, people who know her only a little, might drift over. And Luz is happy to share her plate of food, but not to share Jomari.

“Let’s go out in the garden. There are benches by the grotto,” she suggests.

“Good idea.”

Much to Luz’s relief, one of the benches is free, and it’s not the one in the sun. They sit down on the cool stone. The gentle gurgling of the grotto’s water feature and the smell of wet stone and ferns make it feel like being in a forest. Luz puts the plate down on the bench between them.

“I didn’t know you came to this church,” Luz says.

“I don’t. Today is the first time I come here. It’s the anniversary of the day when the pirates boarded our ship and killed my mates,” he says, turning serious.

“I’m sorry.”

“I often think that I should have been killed with them. I wonder what would have happened to my best friend if he tried to save himself instead of covering me.”

“You can’t live your life thinking like that. It’s not your fault that he died. You didn’t ask him to do that and, most importantly, you were not the pirate who killed him. All that happened is the pirates’ fault, not yours,” Luz says.

Jomari shakes his head. Luz knows that some feelings are difficult to get rid of, even if they don’t make any sense. You can know all the reasons why they’re wrong, and you can try to be rational about them, but feelings don’t follow reason.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be burdening you with such sad thoughts. It’s Sunday, it’s your day off, and you deserve fun and distraction.”

“Maybe I don’t want fun and distraction.”

“Tell me about you. What’s going on in your life at the moment,” he says, changing the topic.

“Work is very quiet right now. Sir is in Sicily—he’s been there for a while—and we don’t have much to do other than keep dusting chairs that are not being sat on, tables that are not being eaten at, and ornaments that are not being admired. I know I should be grateful to have such light work, but I can’t help feeling a little bored. Then I feel guilty for grumbling about feeling bored, when there are so many other domestic helpers who are overworked and strained, without adequate food and rest, living in cramped conditions. It’s very ungrateful of me, really.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself. Once our basic bodily needs are fulfilled and we have food, rest and shelter, our other needs start making themselves felt. Our minds have needs too,” Jomari says.

Luz wonders which type of need her need for a man falls under. Is it a bodily need? It can certainly feel like it. Or is it a need of the mind—to plan a future with someone? Or it could be a need of the heart—to feel loved, wanted and safe. It could even be a need of the soul.

“What are your needs right now?” she asks him.

He frowns and looks at her. His expression is impenetrable. It’s as if an armour has covered him, locking him inside. Luz regrets having asked.

“I don’t have any needs,” he says levelly.

“That can’t be true.”

“My needs don’t matter.”

“Why not?”

He shakes his head and Luz senses that he’s raising the portcullis of his castle. She’s going to be shut out if she’s not quick.

“Is it because you survived and your friends didn’t?”

He shoots her an icy look. It’s a warning to stop. But Luz can’t stop. She can’t see him hurt and not do anything about it.

“I know it is. There’s a name for that, it’s called ‘survivor’s guilt’ and it’s a symptom of PTSD. It’s not a healthy thing and it’s something that needs to be treated.”

He puts down the curry puff she has given him.

“I shouldn’t have come looking for you. I should have left the church as soon as the service was over.”

“But you wanted to see me. That’s because you don’t have a problem with me. You only have a problem with the things I say.”

“It hardly makes a difference.”

“No. It makes a world of difference.”

Luz’s gaze falls on his shoes. The shoes with his prosthetic foot isn’t as worn as the one containing his flesh-and-bone foot.

“Don’t you think that losing a leg is enough of a payment to atone for your guilts—whatever you think they are?”

“But I’m still alive.”

“And is that a fault? Or your fault? Let your being alive be a blessing to others.”

“I’m working on it. That’s why I’m helping the authorities stop slavery and human trafficking.”

“I know, and I admire you for it. But are you letting yourself be loved?”

“If you’re talking about the love of a woman, I’ve seen too much to believe in love anymore.”

“But you must believe in friendship. Your friend gave his life for you. You can’t argue that friendship doesn’t exist.”

“Yes, I do believe in friendship.”

“Then will you let me be your friend?”

He looks at her. There’s hesitation in his eyes. Is it because he finds her irritating? Or is it because he wants more than friendship from her? Luz hopes for the second.