Hindi aco patay, at least I’m not dead yet, I thought, as I left Nick’s apartment.
No sooner had I reached our room in Pasay City than Susan came home. She wasn’t very happy. ”By tomorrow we need to make a decision, right or wrong, about what we’re going to do,” she said. “If we can’t fly, what are our options? The money we have won’t get us very far.”
Even before Susan brought it up, I had been weighing our options, good and bad, and had come to the conclusion that we were extremely lucky that I hadn’t been arrested. I always looked on the bright side of things. Whenever one of us felt low, the other usually could say something funny. I had always dreamed of seeing the world, and now here we were in the Philippines, in Manila, having survived here for over a year. I began looking forward to seeing other places and also of learning about other people, which might suggest that we’d been foolish to stay in the Philippines after we’d been ordered out. Who knew what would happen now? Can we ever predict the future? In any case, up until then we had no plans; we were just determined to stay away from the authorities, authorities of both nations, of the United States and the Philippines…something so far we had managed to do. I told her about helping Nick pack.
“He said something about going back to Mindanao and the Sulus,” I said. “If it is not too late, we’ll have to do something for him before he leaves. We’ll probably never see him again.”
“I’m not worried about Nick,” Susan said. “I’m more concerned about where we’ll be tomorrow.”
About a week later, we decided that we couldn’t stay in one place for very long. On the bus, Susan and I reopened the discussion about becoming world travelers. I threw myself into it, proposing that we walk across Borneo, however daunting that might’ve seemed to her. ”Look, we can island hop. That’s how we can get out of the Philippines. It should be easy.”
“But what if I’m pregnant?”
That thought had never occurred to me, but it was something we could easily find out, so I went on talking about walking across Borneo. Besides, we couldn’t afford a baby. I didn’t want to feel constrained. She would welcome it, and I wouldn’t. She could use it as an excuse to go home. It would ruin me. Still, I persisted. “Can you give me a reason why you think you’re pregnant?” I asked. “Can you be specific?”
“I’ve skipped my period. Is that specific enough for you?”
I pressed her hand and said innocently, in an attempt to change the subject, “We don’t have to walk across Borneo. I’m sure we’ll have other choices. I understand that Malaysia and Singapore have socialized medicine. I don’t know about Indonesia”
“How can you be so sure about how you’ll feel?” Susan asked. ”Wouldn’t you want your son or daughter to be born in America? I don’t like our situation.”
“Do you think I like it?”
“You don’t seem as worried as I am,” she said.
I then countered her, saying, “Now come on, you can’t say you haven’t enjoyed it.”
Susan repeated that she thought that she might be pregnant, challenged me to say that she couldn’t be, and debated what we would do, what would be best for the child and for us.
”You win, Susan,” I finally said, shaking my head. “
I had to concede that having a child would change everything. For all of the complications that came with a child, I also admitted that it would be worth it.
“And would it surprise you to learn that I stop taking birth control pill?”
“That would surprise me.”
“The scary thing is that I stopped taking them six months ago hoping that I’d get pregnant. I also thought that maybe it would get you off the hook with your draft board. I heard somewhere that it would. Can you imagine me trying to get pregnant and my not telling you? Now you’re angry.”
I’m was certainly shocked. I should’ve been angry, but I wasn’t.
“Now we’ll have to wait and see.”
I suggested that we find a doctor, at this point almost any doctor would do, because I didn’t want to assume that she was smart enough to know whether she was pregnant or not. I insisted that it had to be a doctor and not a midwife; and would prefer an American doctor. “I know there are missionary doctors around,” I said.
She said it didn’t really matter to her.
I was very much relieved, and felt that she and I now had more of a bond.
As we took our bumpy, sticky journey south, I enjoyed looking at the scenery offered from the bus, a tropical world with nipa huts. After Susan and I had a chance to settle into a new routine, I said to her, “I know that you’ve not always felt as if you could communicate with me, but I don’t think it’s fair that you stopped taking birth control pills without telling with me.”
“As always, you’re sense of timing is all wrong,” she said. ”You’re on a public bus, in a Catholic country, and you’re upset with me over not taking birth control pills. If you’re looking to find supporters, I don’t think you’ll find them here. Look at all the stares.”
The bus we were on was fairly full. I continued to stare out of the window. Susan, an excellent debater, had made her point. I wasn’t much of a debater, and since I was a child I always looked guilty, whether I was guilty or not. I was surprised about how direct Susan was and glad we were on a public bus and not in the privacy of a room.
Randy Ford
3 Comments
November 28, 2009 at 11:06 am
i’am visit and salam kenal..
November 28, 2009 at 11:08 am
i’am visit and l like ur site
November 28, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Thank you or slamath Randy