The passing of a significant moment does not yield to the limitations of time. It stretches infinitely. It stays, just long enough for the eye to savour it; to recognise that it is set apart from all the glimpses of mundanity that make up life. But it disappears just as sudden as it came. It does not bring closure. It just passes. It reminds you of something that once was; Something that could have been. It does not come back.

And that was how he saw her again. Right across the street of the tiny, tucked-away convenience store they used to frequent after long nights in the hospital. He had walked this way for years after she left, never once catching a glimpse of her. He had assumed that she had left the city completely. Or if not the city, maybe even perhaps the entire metro. Maybe she had tucked herself away in Biñan, where she was born and her family was from. Or perhaps she had flown to Siargao and its beautiful beaches, just like she had always promised their daughter with bittersweet tears in both their eyes.

But no. She was here.

He saw her, that unmistakable curl of her hair, and that stance of her shoulders, rolled back tight, both strong and vulnerable. As if bracing herself for the constant blows of life that came her way. Her back was to him, and she was standing on the sidewalk, just looking up at the towering hospital.

It was a private hospital, one of the best in the country. It stood in the middle of a polished street in Taguig, surrounded by high-rise condo buildings and overpriced designer stores and restaurants. Its white body gleamed in the hot Philippine sun, a wonderful contrast to the bright blue sky. As a young couple, they had spent most of their paycheques and took out loans after loans just to afford a meagre room and the expensive treatments that did not guarantee recovery.

He had been a rookie engineer, and she was an accountant. Both of them were barely five years out of college when the debt started. As the glass door of the convenience store swung close behind him, he heard the bell tinkle and chirp with past hushed prayers. The sleek cars kept driving on the beautifully paved street, passing ghosts of a past him and her, crossing the street with held hands. The rumbling engines reminded him of a rattling cough, shaking a frame too small, too weak. But then, the images and the sounds of the past cleared, and he saw her again.

Her back was to him. She kept staring at the hospital. And then, she walked away. She did not enter.

He started driving to and frequenting the convenience store again, even if there were nearer stores to home. Even when he didn’t necessarily have anything he needed to buy. After the pandemic, his work transitioned to a hybrid setup, allowing him to work from home and only go to the office twice a month. So now, he’d go in every day, at around three in the afternoon. He’d buy a pack of cigarettes, never mind the fact he stopped smoking years ago out of guilt. He’d buy a chocolate bar or a pack of gummy bears, put it in his pocket, and forget about it until he went home. He’d buy a bottle of coke or a cheap cup of coffee. And then he’d stand on the sidewalk, waiting for her to come back.

Come back.

Those two words. Those two damn words. He had heard them uttered in so many different ways.

“Come back soon,” he had told her numerous times when he was left in the hospital room and it was her turn for the convenience store run.

“When are you coming back?” he had heard from her boss when she called in work to file an emergency leave.

And finally, “Come back to us, anak. Come back to Mommy and Daddy,” they had uttered fervently, clutching their daughter’s tiny hands and weeping as the heart monitor echoed one final continuous beep.

Now, he whispered them to himself. Come back. He did not pray. He did not pray anymore.

By the third week after he saw her outside the hospital, he called her mother. He didn’t expect his mother-in-law to pick up. He assumed that maybe when his wife left four years ago, she had told her family of her decision and told them to cut him off. But on the third ring, the woman picked up.

“Oh, Johnny,” Tita Esme said in a way of greeting. She sounded surprised, but not upset. She even sounded like she missed him.

“Hello po, Tita,” he responded meekly. “Kumusta po kayo?”

“Ito, okay naman. Maganda takbo ng restaurant. Baka nga mag-expand na rin kami sa Los Baños at baka rin sa Cavite.”

He congratulated her. After a few more exchanges of the required pleasantries, he finally got to the point of why he called. “Tita, kumusta po si Beth? Nandyan po ba siya sa inyo?”

The line went silent. Then, Tita Esme replied, “Naku, Johnny. Ang tagal nang ‘di nagpaparamdam si Beth. Minsan, nagte-text, pero napakabihira. Hinahayaan ko naman, lalo na pagkatapos nung nangyari kay…Basta, alam mo na ‘yon.”

He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or angry that Beth had disappeared and was unreachable to her own mother, too. He didn’t have anything to say. He didn’t know what to think.

Tita Esme must have sensed his despair. She said kindly, “Matagal na akong naghihinala na may problema kayo, anak. Pagpasensyahan mo na si Beth, ha, Johnny? Alam mo naman kung gaano kabigat yung dala niya. Parehas kayo. Pero in the end, kayong dalawa na lang ang magdadamayan sa isa’t isa.”

He couldn’t take it anymore. He hung up.

That night, when he got back home to their—his—house in Cembo, he slept inside their room again. He had not slept there in four years. Instead, all this time, he had holed himself up in his home office, or slept on the sofa in the living room.

When he entered their bedroom, it was a monument. Preserved for eternity. The air was musty with disuse, but if he focused long enough, he could still catch traces of the perfume she once loved. The plush rug at the foot of the bed was so uniquely Beth. It was something he never would have picked out on his own.

Toys he couldn’t bring himself to pick up or throw out were scattered on the floor. The closet was still a mess, just the way she left it. On the nightstand was a half-empty box of N97 masks. Next to the nightstand was an empty toddler’s bed. A pink blanket with printed rabbits and hearts was slung over the white wood. The master bed was unmade. Their blanket was rumpled; the sheets were pulled from their corners.

Before she left, she had spent weeks in bed, too depressed to get up, until the pillow she lay her head on had a flattened dent. Johnny climbed into the bed, and his back muscles immediately succumbed to the comfort of the soft mattress he had deprived himself of ever since his life had crumbled. He placed his head on the pillow where she used to lie.

On the opposite wall was their family picture. The people in the portrait stared back at him. Smiling. Frozen in time. He wished he could have been preserved that way, too. Preserved like this bedroom he refused to touch. Then he closed his eyes and slept, his mind swimming with images of him and his wife as a young couple, and a little chubby-cheeked girl with his smile and her hair.

The next afternoon, he went back to the convenience store. He sat at the table, nursing a coffee and eating a siopao. He was waiting to see her, but his heart also refused to acknowledge the stubborn hope that she would indeed show up. The past four years, he had been living in the automation of routine. His days passed by in a blur of working, eating, sleeping, and staring at the empty child’s bed and his wife’s messy closet with all the clothes she left behind.

But then, he saw her again, and something significant in his chest shifted. He was back inside his body, no longer trapped in the cycles of his troubled mind. And though what an invigorating sensation it was, to feel his hands shaking with nerves, to have his eyes be blinded by the daylight, to feel the wind in his hair—it also hurt. He had not hurt this way since that tiny coffin was lowered into the ground. And now it was back, stronger than ever.

Johnny knew it was all Beth’s fault. That selfish bitch, with her curly hair and her strong shoulders. That inconsiderate, cruel woman, thinking she could just walk out and leave him alone to suffocate in grief, only to waltz back in and make him remember how to feel. So he sat in the convenience store. Waiting.

Come back. Tangina, come back, Beth.

And he saw her. She wore a green dress. A new one he had never seen before. But then, it had been four years. Of course, she had new clothes. Why should Johnny expect to see her in something familiar, something she had worn when they were both young and in love? But this logic did not quell the anger. He was still wearing a blue button-down he had bought from Uniqlo in 2019. He still wore his trusty leather brown loafers and his beige trousers. He still used the same cologne. Johnny still lived in the same house in Cembo, Makati, surrounded by the same neighbours, driving the same car, working the same job. How dare Beth leave him like this?