The Letter of Evelyn - #30
by Remedios Dorio
🤦♀️Doctor Edgar Montero, Armand and the other associates of their Law Firm work hard to make things in order. I decided that the money, the five hundred million pesos will be divided equally to ten charity foundations directly after it’s maturity. The money will not touch my hand. The four safety box deposit that coincided with the four keys were on different banks, and you know, the first three deposit boxes was empty. I could not understand. The last box that I opened, what I saw in it was a small booklet and a gold chain with a pendant in the shape of a heart, a medallion. I opened it, and I saw a photo of a woman with words in tiny letters that says, ‘ my mother.’ The small booklet was full of names and amount and frankly I also could not understand it.🤦♀️
“You are very busy!” Adora commented to Evelyn.
“I am almost finished from what I am doing.” Evelyn answered Adora.
“Important things?” Adora asked.
“The wealth, the estates of Nelson.” Evelyn told Adora what she was busy doing. “I want to know more and made everything in order.”
“I heard you were giving away your wealth.” Adora said to Evelyn that she heard Evelyn was giving away her wealth.
“Yes, I am giving to many Charity Foundations. There are many people who badly needed it.” Evelyn answered Adora.
“And you, you do not need money?” Adora asked if Evelyn self needs no money.
“What will I do with all that money? I can buy all expensive things, but it never will make me happy. I cursed my father before because he went bankrupt, and we became poor and all the people we knew mocked us and looked down; my friends all went away! Then suddenly, the money flooded into my life because of Nelson, and also has started all the miseries in my life.” Evelyn answered Adora.
“You can make many friends; it will lighten your life.” Adora said to Evelyn that she could make many friends.
“Of course, I can make friends, but am I sure that the people will be faithful friends? Because I am rich, that I have money, I can easily make friends, but you know Adora, I do not trust people anymore. Money believe me, could not and never make you happy! Money is a curse!” Evelyn’s reply to what Adora said. Adora did not answer. Evelyn sounded very disappointed with people.
“That is a very fatalistic view about people, about life!” Adora said.
“Adora, how I wish I am one of those poor people who had nothing. They were already happy if they can eat. They laughed for just simple things and if they do laugh, they have the purest laughs of happiness! I envy them!”
🤦♀️Doctor Edgar Montero, I meant what I said to Adora. I really had wished I am poor but happy. For many nights already, I had nightmares that I became afraid to sleep. I cannot take my eyes to the photo in the medallion and the words ‘my mother’. I assumed the medallion belonged to Nelson, and the woman in the photo was his mother. In the booklet the photo of that woman was fastened in the first page, and there under a kind of letter to her from Nelson. It says, ‘How I wish I can find you. You are the woman who brought me to this world, but I never had seen you, only this photo you left with me when you left me at the door of the orphanage, when I was just days old. I do not know what your name is and why you abandoned me. What ever your reasons were, I am and will not be angry with you. Maybe because of poverty you gave me away. You had thought that I will have a good life and future with people who will adopt me. You are right. A wealthy American couple adopted me, brought me to America. The father I knew was a successful businessman. Pity accident taken them away from me, my father, and my mother. Alone with no known family I dedicated myself to become rich, and it’s too late to realize I forgot to live. I had your photo published in every newspaper but no success. Mother, where can I find you? Do you know I chose to live here in the Philippines because I hope someday we will meet?’ Doctor Edgar Montero, I felt pity to Nelson. Now I know why he was alone with nobody. 🤦♀️
“Lolita, may I ask how old you are?” Evelyn asked Lolita who was busy ironing clothes.
“Ma’am, I am old already!” Lolita answered Evelyn. “I am forty-two years old.”
“You never married?”
“No.” laughing Lolita answered Evelyn.
“Why not?” Evelyn wanted to know why Lolita became an old maid. “You never had a boyfriend?”
“No!” Lolita as she answered Evelyn shook her head.
“I had given you money, one hundred thousand pesos, what did you do with the money?”
“I gave it to my parents and to my brothers and sisters. They were happy. They had a share of the land you let be divided to your workers and the money they had from me, they used it as capital for what ever they thought could help them for a better life.” Lolita answered Evelyn when Evelyn asked her what she had done with the money.
“I thought you still could have your own family.” Evelyn suggested to Lolita that Lolita could still have her own family. Lolita just laughed.
“I do not know Ma’am. There’s a widower with one child, the neighbor of my brother. He was also one of the beneficiaries of your land. He likes me.” Lolita later on told Evelyn about someone who wanted her to be his wife.
“How about you? Do you like him? Is he a good man?”
🤦♀️Doctor Edgar Montero, when I am watching Lolita working that day, I wondered her kind of life. She worked by our family for a long time, and I knew that the money she earned she gave it all to her parents. Also the one hundred thousand pesos, she gave it all to her family. What a generous person, not thinking about herself but her family she loved. I decided to help her. I did encourage her to marry that widower. I thought she deserved to be happy by herself. I gave her a cheque of one million pesos and send back to Bacolod, together with all the papers I told her to take safe care of it. She was surprised and will not, but I forced her. I said she still had the chance to be happy herself.🤦♀️
“I thought you took Lolita here with you so that you will not be alone?” Adora was surprised that Evelyn sent Lolita back to Bacolod.
“I could not hold her with me. I realized she still had a chance to marry someone and be happy by herself.” Evelyn answered Adora.
“You play cupid to her!” Adora said.
“I never met the man she was talking about, but I told her she must grab her chance to happiness!”
“Okay, how about you? You look terrible, like you don’t sleep at all!” Adora let Evelyn know that she noticed her haggard look.
“I cannot sleep, and I don’t know why.” Evelyn answered Adora.
“Why not ask your doctor a sleeping pill.” Adora suggested to Evelyn to ask a sleeping pill from her doctor.
“Maybe.” A short answer of Evelyn to what Adora said.
“Any news about John Mar?” Adora asked Evelyn about John Mar.
“Her mother called me yesterday. John Mar she said already had two times the operation, two nerve transplant.” Evelyn answered.
“John Mar then had a chance to recover?”
“I do not know. The doctors promised nothing. The nerve transplant could help but also maybe not.”
“And if will not help, what will happen to John Mar?” Adora asked.
“I don’t know, there’s a big chance that John Mar will die.”
🤦♀️Doctor Edgar Montero, it is not that I cannot sleep, I can sleep if I like but I will not sleep because when I sleep I had the nightmare. Always a week already that I had nightmares and I do not know why. What were my nightmares means? Why did I have nightmares? One night I saw Adora still awake, waiting for Greg who again worked overtime. I knocked at her door, and she let me in.🤦♀️
“You cannot sleep I guess.” Adora said to Evelyn.
“A sort of; what are you doing?” Evelyn asked Adora when she was inside and saw many photo albums on the seat bank and on the table, a box full of photos.
“My mother just kept photos in the boxes and now she asked me to arrange it all into albums.” Adora answered Evelyn. “So many old photos. Photos of relatives I’d never seen in person. Look, like this photo. This woman was the aunt of my mother, and I’d never seen her.”
Evelyn looked at the photo, and her face became pale. She could not believe it, but the photo looked like the photo in the booklet of Nelson and in the medallion.****to be continued****