After a few weeks, Honorata left the village. She had sobbed, wanting her nanay to come with her, and her nanay had held her tightly. It was true, she agreed, Honorata must go to America, but no, she would not go with her. She would not walk onto a plane, fly across an ocean, speak a language she did not know. It was not possible for her in the same way that living where she could see her uncle was not possible for Honorata. Somehow the world had dropped between them—Honorata and Nanay—and how it had happened did not matter. Life could not be reversed.
In the days after Honorata accepted that this was true, at least for now, everything about her time in the village felt precious. She sat underneath the wooden floor of her mother’s home, her back against one of the four thick trunks that held the house well above the ground, and remembered the games she had played there. At night, the rain fell softly on the grass roof. She walked about touching things, smelling them, rubbing against her cheek the dented pot her mother used for cooking and tasting the leaves of the bush with purple flowers. She did not know when she would return to Buninan or who she would then be. As she left her village, as she walked along the road to catch the jeepney, sipping the salabat her mother had said would ease the sickness, she imprinted every sensation: the shape of branches against the sky, the smell of rice growing, and the sounds: of birds, of children playing luksong-baka, of a cloud rat startled from its branch. In Chicago, she had heard the whistle and chug of busses, the honk of car horns. In Las Vegas, there had been clanking and bells, the crashing of coins into trays.
From Buninan, Honorata went first to a hotel in Manila. Not a grand hotel in Makati or Ortigas, but still her room was big and there was no garbage piled next to the building. At night, the shops closed, and the streets were quiet. She stayed there another week, looking for Kidlat, trying to find out where he had gone, if anyone was in touch with him. Finally, she found Rosauro, who told her that Kidlat had gone to Mindanao, that he was headed to Davao City, or perhaps he had changed his mind and found a way to Palawan.
Rosauro had been with Kidlat when he had found out what happened to Honorata. Kidlat had shouted and said he would hurt her uncle, but they both knew that he would not hurt him. Kidlat and Rosauro already knew what her uncle did in the city; they had known for a long time, but Kidlat hadn’t thought there was any reason for Honorata to know. Nobody had imagined that her uncle could do what he did. Did Honorata need anything? Rosauro asked. Kidlat was his kuya. He would do anything for Honorata.
She left Manila the next day.
She had not given up on bringing her mother to the States, and she thought that her nanay would come eventually, after the baby was born, after she accepted what her brother had done to her daughter. But Honorata had given up on finding Kidlat. Too much had happened; it had been a mistake to want to find him. Perhaps she had thought that Kidlat would persuade her to stay in Pilipinas, perhaps she had thought he would have a way to shield her from her uncle, perhaps she had imagined the life they would live with all her money. But seeing Rosauro brought it back: the way it was, not the way she pretended. There was the movie, what had happened, that she had done it for Kidlat, and that he had then left. There was her uncle, there were the months with Jimbo, and, strangely, there was the woman who had helped her in Las Vegas. All of this made not just Buninan, but even Manila—not just her village, but even Kidlat—wrong for her.
The Honorata who had lived in Manila did not exist anymore. Sitting on the edge of the bed, in that clean hotel room larger than any apartment she could have imagined a year ago, Honorata shook with this idea. For an instant, her teeth clenched, her muscles contracted, she wanted to strike something, she wanted to hit someone, she would not be able to bear it; the anger was a cold-hot rush of necessity. Then she inhaled, once, twice, she put the thought carefully aside, she unfolded her fingers and closed her eyes. She sat perfectly still for a long time.
If that Honorata did not exist, the one sitting on this bed did.
Nanay was right. The only way to live life was forward.
When she was fully calm, when she could take in air without hearing it, she repacked her suitcase, bumped it down the stairs of the hotel, and walked along the crowded street until she found a taxi. “To the airport,” she said, and as she rode, with the car lurching and the smell of exhaust making her sick, she thought about the possibilities. She thought about what she had learned of the United States, about the snow in Chicago, the lights on the Strip, the grocery stores with their long aisles of boxes and cans. She thought of the television shows she and Kidlat had watched in the bar where he worked: Charlie’s Angels and The Brady Bunch and L.A. Law. She remembered the way America looked in those shows, the blue skies and the ocean and the houses so new and big. She pictured the women—their long feathered hair as they sped away in a car; or the mother with the short bob, smiling as everyone in her family did what she wanted.
When she got to the airport, she didn’t hesitate. She didn’t hesitate because she wasn’t the Honorata who had left Buninan for Manila a decade ago. She wasn’t the Honorata her uncle had put on a plane a year ago. She wasn’t even the Honorata who had sat in this airport, head in her hands, just weeks ago. She was on her own, and there was no one to protect her, and she did not need protection. She had won a jackpot, and she was pregnant. Honosuerte. She had a passport, and she would buy a ticket to Los Angeles. Bahala na. Come what may. She would live in the city of angels.
She took a room in a hotel near the Los Angeles airport, and a taxi driver showed her the nearest hospital. At first, the man at the hospital was reluctant to help her. She couldn’t register for a birth without a doctor, and how long would she be staying in LA? Did she have a permanent address? So she went to a Catholic church, and there the woman in the office helped her find a doctor, and also asked where she was living and if she could afford an apartment. With her help, Honorata rented a furnished apartment in Inglewood, not too far from the hospital. She told the woman at the church that she was planning to buy a house, before the baby was born, if she could. The woman gave her a puzzled look but did not ask any questions; instead, she gave her the name of a congregant who was also a realtor.
“We don’t have a large Filipino community here,” she said. “You might be more comfortable in Eagle Rock. Or West Covina. The realtor will know.”