Magnet & Steele (16 page)

“You want a divorce?” Stephen
callously asked her, bringing a half consumed one liter of J&B
up to his lips. He had been sitting patiently for her in his
favorite declining arm chair…waiting patiently to blow up at
her.

“Yes,” Nancy quickly
declared.

“Were you with him last
night?”

“Yes.”

“Was it good?”

“Oh Stephen, don’t torment
yourself,” she said harshly, placing her purse down on a nearby
armchair across from him.

“Who’s tormenting themselves?” He
asked coldly, waiving the emptied bottle in the air and then in a
circle in front of his chest. “Do you see a man here…sad?” After
that he started to chuckle.

Nancy looked in further and surveyed
his appearance. “You’re drunk, I can see that. Go to bed Stephen,
we’ll talk about this after you’ve slept it off.”

“No!” He yelled out, pounding his
fist against the arm rest of his chair first and then hurling the
bottle of J&B across the area in a fit of rage. “You
whore!”

Nancy swallowed the cruel accusation
and declared, “It’s over Stephen.”

“Nothing’s over till I say it’s
over!” He roared back at her standing up to his feet.

Nancy took a step backwards. “We’re
over,” she simply said to him.

“You’re impure!” He shouted back,
pointing his finger in her face.

“What?” She gave out
half-smiling.

“I want to see you grovel before
God!” He demanded, pointing that finger of his to the ground now.
“Get down on your hands and knees and beg for His forgiveness! You
adulterer! You whore!”

“What?” Nancy fully laughed now.
“Are you insane? I’m not going to beg for anyone’s forgiveness,”
she argued, whirling around and trying to plead her case. “I
deserve this. I’ve wanted him my entire life; loved him all my
life! I’ve waited for this very day for the past twenty-two
years!”

“You’ve wanted this? What about me?”
Stephen asked, actually incredulous. “God-dammit! What about
me?”

Nancy cracked again. “What about
you? You’ve gotten what you’ve always wanted. You’ve held me in
this loveless contract forever!”

Stephen stepped away from her and
ran his hands through his thinning hair. “Held you here? You were
free to choose! What the hell kept you here then?”

Nancy closed her mouth. All this
time she was free to choose? For once, she didn’t know what else to
say but, “The children.”

Stephen crossed his arms across his
chest, “Just the children?”

Nancy looked him straight in the
eye, “A normal life, for the sake of the children.”

“Our children,” he corrected
her.

“Our children,” she accepted and
then tried to solicit his compassion. “Stephen, everyone who kept
us together is deceased. Our fathers, they’re both dead. That
shame, it’s gone. It’s completely gone, there’s nothing more to
keep us together.”

“What about the children?” He asked
unemotional again.

“They’re all grown up, Stephen. Paul
is a man, I haven’t seen or heard from him for over a year and
Suzy, well, she’s got her own life with her own family to worry
about now, and Francine, she’s newly married and packed to leave.
Our children don’t need us anymore, Stephen, therefore, it’s over.
This arrangement is over.”

Stephen, out of the blue, brought
his hands up to his face and began to cry. “Oh Nancy, you’re
right,” he whimpered, “…you’re absolutely right.”

Nancy never saw him cry before and
she couldn’t believe it, but she actually felt sorry for him.
“Stephen, you need someone in your life…someone to
love.”

He quickly looked up at her, “But I
love you Nancy.”

Nancy closed her eyes and felt a
chill run up her spine. Unbelievable…all this time, he had loved
her as well? Why hadn’t he ever told her so? “You’ve never once
told me!”

“But I always have…”

Nancy swallowed her bitterness, “And
maybe you did, you do…”

“I’ve been caring for you since I
was ten years old!” He confessed, walking away from her. “Fell in
love with you the moment we went for that drive up on Sutter’s
Point, do you remember that? Doesn’t that mean anything to you…Our
past…Our history together? That has to amount to
something.”

Nancy ran her own fingers through
her hair. Unraveling her bun, her hair fell down to her shoulders.
“We’ve wasted so many years, Stephen,” she asserted, scratching the
back of her head trying to relieve some tension. “Wasted our whole
lives living this lie, I’m tired of it,” she confessed, “I’m tired
of feeling that guilt that if I ever tried to leave you, I’d be
punished because of it. I’ve been so unhappy Stephen, couldn’t you
tell? Haven’t you ever noticed? There have been so many unhappy
years.”

“Not all of them were unhappy,” he
solicited, trying to grasp at straws.

Nancy wiped away a tear that
abruptly fell down her cheek. “I was unhappy Stephen. I’ve always
been unhappy, couldn’t you tell, couldn’t you see? If you’ve always
loved me, couldn’t you tell that I’ve always wished I were
somewhere else?”

Philippines, 1968

Francine exits the airplane. Almost
immediately, she could see the heat all around her; sweat, shorts
and the irritation. Ian took her to Manila to live. Unlike Hawaii,
the Philippines were not yet commercialized. The moment the plane
landed at the airport, she knew she was in for an experience. The
people were different, the places were startling and the Filipino
customs were tough to get used to. She had been living the American
dream for so long, everything provided for her by mere words; all
she had to do was ask. It was a harbored life she had been living,
living on the big island of opportunity.

To help her understand what Ian got
her into, Francine did some research and brought along some books
with her and read them on the plane ride over. The moment she
landed, she knew now that the name “Philippines” was derived from
King Philip II of Spain in the 16th century. The Negritos, a
pre-Mongoloid ethnic group that migrated from mainland Asia,
settled in the islands about 30,000 years ago. Another ethnic group
known as the Malay people, a group of Malayo-Polynesian speaking
people originated from the populations of Taiwanese aborigines, and
settled in the Philippines approximately 6,000 years ago. In 1521,
Portuguese-born Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived at
Samar and in Leyte and claimed the island for Spain. Colonization
began when the Spanish explorer Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived
from Mexico in 1565 and formed the first European settlements in
Cebu. The Spanish military fought off various indigenous revolts
and several external colonial challenges, especially from the
British, Chinese pirates, Dutch and Portuguese. Roman Catholic
missionaries converted most of the inhabitants to Christianity and
founded schools, universities and hospitals. Philippine culture was
a mixture of Eastern and Western but Hispanic influences were
derived from that of Spain and Mexico. These influences were most
evident in literature, folk music, folk dance, language, food, art
and religion. Philippine cuisine was a mixture of Asian and
European dishes and one of the most visible Hispanic legacies was
the prevalence of Spanish surnames and names among Filipinos. A
Spanish name and surname among the majority of Filipinos did not
always denote Spanish ancestry. The majority of street names, towns
and provinces were in Spanish and the architecture had a major
imprint.

An open Jeep called a “Jeepney” took
her along a dirt road and then a dirty path towards her new home.
The Jeepney was an abandoned hover vehicle that had been used
during WWII. Her future home was now a small cottage with chipped
paint with patchy overgrown grass. Ian arranged for them to stay
near Subic Bay in Olongapo City.

The U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay was a
major ship repair, supply, rest and recreation facility for the
United States. Located in Zambales, Philippines, it was the largest
U.S. Naval installation in the Pacific. The Vietnam War placed a
tremendous workload on Subic Bay. The base became the service
station and supermarket for the U.S. Seventh Fleet after the Gulf
of Tonkin incident in 1964. From an average of 98 ships visiting a
month in 1964, the average shot up to 215 by 1967 with about 30
ships in port on any given day. A new record was set in October
1968 with 47 ships in port.

This was why they were there in the
first place; Ian tried to explain to her, too many lost souls…too
many lost soldiers that needed aid and spiritual
guidance.

Their home wasn’t so nice though;
Ian said he wanted to prove a point and couldn’t be seen as
tourists, they needed to be seen as normal and part of the
countryside. So why couldn’t he save the sinners in their own
country? Francine asked him the day after they got married. Eight
more months of his tour, Ian replied, and off they went,
practically leaving all their wedding presents back in the states
with just the clothes on their backs to their new life
overseas.

That evening, Francine was looking
out at all the breathtaking bamboo palms, palm trees and grasses
when she felt her skin crawl for the very first time. Ian began
touching her from behind and it truly felt odd and uncomfortable
with his arms around her waist, up and down her back, freely
touching her bottom at will. He couldn’t wait to make love to his
new wife and touched her bosoms with both hands from the rear. Yes,
they had waited. Waited until he could get her a visa out of the
U.S. and into this religious life he wanted to carve out for
himself. Waited until they were finally alone with no outside
distractions and no one to care or judge them.

Carefully exploring his newfound
territory, he waited for approval from Francine but she didn’t
react. Instead, she closed her eyes out in front of her and
remained immobile. His hands inched their way up towards her
nipples, but there was still no response from Francine.

She thought about Derrie at that
moment; Derrie and his new wife…with their new home…blissful and
comfortable. She closed her eyes even harder, bit down on her lower
lip and swung her body around to receive this new husband of hers
and attached her mouth to his, kissing and folding him in as well
when Ian led them both back into the cottage to make
love.

A month later, Ian escorted Francine
out to the U.S. Naval base; out to where he used to spend time, he
told her one night after making love. It was during those weekends
without her, he confessed, or rather before her and before he found
God.

The naval base in Subic Bay was
surrounded by a strip of nightclubs that ran along one particular
street. It was a sight of colorful, welcoming and enticing sinful
places and all around the base, practically in a full circle, there
were theaters, eateries and hotels; the 24-hour kind, with ceiling
fans and double beds. To be honest, it was actually disgusting to
Francine and she didn’t ingest the secret by telling Ian how she
hated it every other five seconds or so.

It was life before ‘you-know-who’,
she started calling him now. It was life after you-know-who and
Francine was finally starting to feel comfortable in her
surroundings and with her husband. He was beginning to grow on her
with his gentleness and love, waking her up with tiny little kisses
on her nose in the early sunshine of the morning and making her
squirm for pleasure at night a few nights a week. It was nice…it
was normal and unexciting and she was beginning to settle into her
new life of being a Naval Chaplain’s Wife.

*****

Beaching their boat one night and
anchoring it in the deep sand, they sailed out to the ‘100 Islands’
and the twosome were lying out on a blanket on the white sand when
Ian took out a sandwich from within a duffel bag. The islands (124
at low tide and 123 at high tide) were scattered along Lingayen
Gulf and covered an area of 18.44 square kilometers (approximately
4,557 acres). They were believed to be about two million years old
but only three of them had been developed for tourists: Governor
Island, Quezon Island, and Children's Island. The islands were
actually ancient corals that extended well inland, in an area
previously comprising the seabed of an ancient sea. Lowering sea
levels had exposed them to the surface leaving some of them to
create a “beach-like” area for the tourists to visit.

Beaching themselves after swimming
from one island to the next, Ian and Francine laid on the sand to
soak in some of the sun.

“Your cuisine my love,” he gave to
her, smiling.