CHAPTER 2: REBUFF

Without waiting for his reply, nor glancing back at him, I swiftly ran towards the door and got inside the car. My mind was totally lost, completely lost in memory and bringing me back in time as I drove to the only established and well-equipped hospital this town of ours has.

Growing up, you could say that I was emotionally neglected. I was the child that none cared much about, no one gave much attention to. I was an outcast, someone who doesn’t belong and someone who wasn’t needed.

Mother, who was the breadwinner of the family, because my father was physically incapable of working out due to his inborn right leg disability, favors my eldest brother, Peter. Her most favorite and the apple of her eye as she frequently says. She often boasts to others that Peter was the best. In my mother’s eyes, Peter was exceptional. He was her pride and glory, her most handsome prince. Father’s favorite was my older sister, Pamela. For him, Pamela was the smartest, the prettiest and the female version of him. He used to call her his baby girl, his princess. And me? I was no one’s favorite. I was just simply Penelope.

Being the youngest, I always felt unwanted and unneeded. Unwelcome, not only to my parents, but to my two siblings as well. Whatever my accomplishments in school, having good grades, achieving high ranks in sports and school activities, I always remained on the sidelines. No one cared, no one even bothered to appreciate. No matter how I tried to please them, did everything I could with the extra mile just to show that I am equally as good as everyone else, I always felt like a stranger. I don’t fit in. I felt like I didn’t belong with them and never part of a big happy family.

After what happened six years ago, the little hope I have to be loved or even to be acknowledged and the little relationship I have with them, completely vanishes and becomes tragically non-existent. Peter and father rarely talk to me, they would go to the extent of snubbing me as if I wasn’t part of the circle. Mother, on the other hand, wasn’t much of a difference. She would contact or call me if something was important, but aside from that, nothing else. With Pamela, that’s a different case. We never talked nor saw each other for the last six years. The last time she talked to me, she told me that she no longer had a sister. That for her, I no longer exist in her life and she doesn’t know me at all.

Now here I am driving towards the hospital, because my father was shot and all I could ever feel was numbness. Should it be that there was something more than this paralyzing emotion? Sadness perhaps or anxiety? As a daughter, I should be feeling anxious knowing that my father has a bullet inside his body and uncertain of his condition at the hospital. Was it bad that I felt nothing? Was I an ingrate for not feeling anything at all? No whatsoever, but plain numbness.

The whole drive was very much reflective. It gave me a chance to look back at my past and what caused me to act and feel this way now. As I think of my childhood memories, even part of my adulthood, I don’t think the pain and hurt of my past would ever be removed. The pain of rejection, first by my family, then with my husband and in-laws. This was who I am, who I have become. A rejected woman. I am a rebuff. The only one who accepted me for who and what I am was my daughter, my precious angel, Michelle.

As I head towards the emergency room, after asking details about my father at the information desk, my heart beats radically with every step I take. It’s been a short while since I last saw them.

‘He’s going to be alright. He will get through this. I know he will.’

Despite everything that happened between my father and I, I still wish him well. Our hearts may have been separated through the years, but his affection towards my daughter was priceless and beyond belief. It would devastate my daughter’s heart and will sadden her if something extremely bad happens to him.

“Mother, Peter” I called out as a way to greet them the minute I saw them.

They both look at me. Mother’s eyes were bloodshot from crying and her off-white sundress was stricken with blood. Peter’s eyes were dry and void of any emotions, but you could still see his feelings through them. He was just trying to hold everything together and be bold for our mother’s sake.

“Good thing you appeared. I thought you wouldn’t care” Peter nonchalantly uttered as I sat next to my mother.

“What happened? How is he doing, Mother?” I disregarded Peter’s sarcasm, accustomed to his words and approach.

“He was shot twice on his way back home, a few meters away from our house. Our neighbors frantically informed me. I called the ambulance right away and we brought him here. The doctor said that a bullet hit his left lung and the other landed at his upper chest. They are preparing him now for surgery” Her voice catches at the end.

I nod my head, wanting to comfort her. I wanted to hug her to somehow ease her worries and anxiety, but I didn't think my touch would be welcomed, so I left the thought at the back of my head.

“Don’t worry. Father will be alright. He’s a strong-willed man. He will get through with it” I replied, hoping that my words would somehow ease my mother’s anguish and despair.

Minutes later, they bring father out. He was dressed in a hospital gown and laying on the hospital stretcher. Mother and Peter immediately rushed towards him while I stayed seated and just looked their way. I’m pretty much sure that my presence there won’t be valued and considered anyway. Father would rather wish it would be Pamela at his side now than seeing me.

I watched them as my father weakly wiped my mother’s soaking eyes. His gazes were as if he was looking at them for the very last time. He tells Peter something and the latter simply nods. Then even before he was taken inside the emergency room, he slipped a piece of paper at my mother’s trembling hand, which made her weep even more as she kissed him.

Hours had passed, none of us spoke as we waited. It had been a long and agonizing wait for the two. And after countless hours, the long wait finally concluded when the doctor came out from the emergency room and came to the waiting area to meet us.

From the somber look on his face and the oppressively solemn mood he shows, his creased forehead and the lack of enthusiasm in his eyes, I just know that my father didn’t make it. My mother senses the same thing, and so is Peter. She started to hiccup as her body started to tremble uncontrollably while the latter held her on both shoulders as if lending her all of his strength. I stood my ground, waiting for the news to unravel and confirm my thoughts.

“He went into cardiac arrest. We did everything we could, tried our best to revive him, but we couldn’t save him. Unfortunately, the patient’s gone. I’m sorry for your loss” He confides before leaving the three of us behind.

The sound that tears out from my mother’s lips is animalistic. The cries were subhuman and brutally ear-deafening. She was like a howling wolf that was badly wounded and near its death. Peter catches her before she falls and both of them drop to their knees as they wail in extreme anguish. Both of them are crying for their loss. The sound emanating from the hallway was enough to make someone’s blood cold. It was terror-stricken and chilly, full of pain and sorrow, as if the world collapsed right before their very eyes and it was the end of mankind.

I weighed myself as I looked at them. Seeing them this devastated and horror-struck, I should also feel the same, since I am still my father’s daughter. But the more I searched for that feeling inside of me, the more that I couldn’t find any. As much as I wanted to cry and wail with them for losing a family member, my eyes wouldn’t cooperate and not even shed a drop of tear.

I am just standing here looking blankly at them as if the deceased was just someone I got acquainted with in the past, someone that I just knew by his name. I felt nothing but numbness inside and out, insensitive and deprived of any sensation and stultify. Too deadened that not a single emotion was stirred within me while theirs were a lot.

Now that father was dead, it could only mean one thing. The time has come to face her again. Pamela will be back. My older sister, who has cut her ties with me for six long years, will be coming back home.

‘Am I ready to face her? Am I strong enough, after six years, to look her in the eyes and face her loathing stares and venomous words?’