The Second Husband

Although they were never married, they lived together and had two sons and one daughter. His wife works as a realtor and insurance agent. She goes home to her hometown in every weekend.

A few times she brought her eldest son who was 7 at that time, to her office, she introduced him as her nephew. The boy wondered why his mom would say he was her nephew. One time, the boy asked her mother how come she always introduced him as her nephew and not as her son. She didn’t give him a reason. But at 7 age young, his questions were only on the surface, little did he now that there was a deeper reason hidden by his mother.

One day, the father and his mother had a fight. The husband asked his wife to choose between him and her real husband. She chose her first husband.
The next day, she left with her two younger children in tow. Leaving behind the 7 year old son and her “second husband”. She went back to her first family and told her legal husband that the two children were their own.

That was the last time the boy saw his two younger siblings and his mom. All these years all he thought about was his mother. There were hundreds of unanswered question which his father couldn’t give him the answer.

As a young boy, he was thinking maybe he did something bad. Maybe his mother was mad at him.

Hew grew up alone, lonely, lost, depressed, searching for answers, and yearning for the love of his mother.

He wanted to be someone so his mother would be proud of him.

His father offered no explanation and information on his mother’s whereabouts. All he would say was to forget his mother.

One day, he confronted his father and forced him to tell him the real story.
He admitted that he was the second husband and that his mother has a family in the province. He cried and pleaded to his father to bring him to his mother. All he wanted was to see her.

They left before day break the next day. They traveled for 3 hours to reach a house. The knocked at the door. There was a woman who opened the door, it was his mother. His heart jumped. The woman didn’t look happy to see them. The first thing that she said was “umalis na kayo”. Pumunta kayo dun sa tindahan sa kanto, dun ko na lang kayo puntahan”.

They left and waited at a store a block away from his mother’s house. After almost an hour, she appeared and all she said was for them not to come back anymore. Napilitan lang, she gave her cellphone number with instructions to text only, not call.

Out of his longing for his mother, he texted her everyday. Most of the time she would not reply. The few times he requested to see her, she did, like once a month for the next three times only, and only for a few minutes. She would always appear to be irritated and in a hurry. She never gave any money or gift to her son. She never showed any longing, missing, caring, concern, love to her son. She never gave him a hug nor touch his hair or kiss his eldest son.

It happened twice that the son was 5 minutes late to their meeting at the bus stop going to her province, she got mad.
After that, she couldn’t be reached anymore thru her cellphone. She obviously had changed her number to avoid being contacted by her son again.

The boy now contains himself by searching on Facebook for photos of her two siblings which grew up not knowing he ever existed. He has not given up on her mother and still misses her most especially during special occasions like Christmas, New Year and Mother’s Day. He always wondered if she ever missed him too.