The Letter of Evelyn - #4

 

When the expensive Mercedes Benz entered the entrance gate and drove directly to stop at the front door, I saw Nelson Romano stepped out. He has a two bouquet of flowers. Not bad looking man, if I am a woman of the same age as him, I will be glad, him to be my suitor, but I am young, too young for him. He was almost sixty years old and I for one month more, would have the age of eighteen.

In the conversation there was no mentioned about Nelson Romano and me. Just casual conversation, he asked some things about me and that was all. When he went home, he and my father have a short private conversation away from me and my mother.

“Tomorrow you will have a visitor.” Carlos said to Evelyn.

“Visitor?”

“Yes, her name is Sandra, a wedding planner.”

“A wedding planner?” Evelyn did not expect it so fast.

“Look at this. Teresa, come you also can look.” Carlos called Teresa to look too, which he wants Evelyn to look, it was a cheque of twenty-five million pesos.

“He already gave the twenty-five million pesos!” Evelyn could not believe it.

“My God. We are out of problems!” Teresa exclaimed.

“Yes.” Carlos was happy and excited. “Tomorrow I go to the bank, you and your mother will talk with the Wedding Planner.”

And so, it happened. Exactly on my 18^th birthday I got married with Nelson Romano. What a gift to me being a debutante! Everyone was surprised with my sudden wedding and with an old man. Of course, people talk, especially those I thought were my friends. Even on my wedding day in the church, I saw at the corner of my eyes, the whispering, and the laughing. John Mar was also there together with my best friend Olivia. As I see it, they were lovers.

I pretended I am happy. I am all smiles.

After the wedding, becoming Mrs. Romano after all delivered jealousy to many. They gave me names like a gold digger. It hurts, but I learned myself to not listen. I avoided poison people; in one word I have no friends anymore.

The life of my parents returns to what it was. For myself, the hell just begins, the hell I made for myself, and the start was on the wedding night. Nelson wanted to make love with me, but I will not.

“We are already man and wife.”

“Because you bought me!” Evelyn answered Nelson.

“I did not buy you, how come you think about that?”

“You give money to my father!”

“It was a dowry!”

“It is the same. If I do not marry you, you will not give to my father that dowry you said.”

“Of course, a dowry is a dowry. If there is no marriage, there is also no dowry. A dowry means a gift of the groom to the family.”

“You even did not court me!”

“Evelyn, I do not believe in a prolonged process of anything, may it in business or love. I love you, and I want you to be my wife. Do not get me wrong, but there was no coercion with our marriage. You agreed to our marriage.”

“For you, no coercion but to me there was, besides, I do not love you!”

“Okay, you do not love me. That is another thing. But I expect that either you love me or not, you must fulfil your obligation as a wife. I promise you; I will be a good husband. Love, maybe later you can learn to love me.”

“Not in your life!”

“We must not argue about that. Come, do your first duty to me as a wife. I really want to have a child.”

I knew, I was not nice to Nelson on our first night. What he said my obligation as a wife he had it. I hate him! I cried until morning. He did the thing I do not like. He was satisfied, he said to me I am really a virgin as what he expected. My thought about romance was shattered that night. I had fantasized a beautiful rose-colored night with the man I love on my first night of marriage, but the opposite happened. That first night with Nelson was not rose colored, I lost my virginity to an old man, and I hated it.

Nelson as he promised, was an incredibly good husband to me. He does what he could to please me, and yes, money was no problem.

If you have money, you also have many friends. There were many who were jealous with my life or my being Mrs. Romano, and because of the abundance, I can buy whatever I like, but money could not take away the feeling inside me, the feeling that I hate being married to Nelson.

I made new friends and befriended with Amalia. I spent more time with Amalia more than my husband.

“You go home again late, about 4 o’clock this morning.” Nelson asked Evelyn when she sat by the table to eat lunch together with him.

“Yes, Amalia and I went to the disco.” Evelyn answered Nelson.

“I think, Amalia is a bad influence on you.”

“She is my friend. She does nothing wrong!”

“If she is a good friend, she must not drag you to parties.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are pregnant. It is no good for the baby, especially when you drink alcohol.”

“You cannot prison me in this house! Besides Amalia does not force me to go out! I like to go out. I am happy when I am out from this house.”

“I did not or will not stop you to enjoy yourself. What I mean is you must look after the baby you are carrying in you.”

“You cannot stop me from what I am doing.”

“I know, as I said you can do whatever you like to do. You can spend money it is not a problem. What I am just asking from you is to take care our unborn baby.”

“I know what I am doing!” Evelyn pushed her plate and stand to leave the table. “First time I eat together with you and you does not appreciate it. Enjoy your meal and eat alone by yourself.”

Evelyn leaved the table, went inside her room as she had an apart room from her husband and slammed the door hard.

Nelson for a while sits still, and losing his appetite, also pushed his plate away, stand up and went to the terrace and sit slumped to the rocking chair.

As he sits, he thought his relationship with Evelyn. Since their marriage, he had made love to his wife five times only. Evelyn is avoiding him. Since she demanded to have her own bedroom, he really could not come to her. They were more than six months married and he knows that Evelyn was pregnant for almost four months already. He was happy for how he wants to have an heir for the huge property and wealth he had built in the Philippines and abroad particularly in the USA. Concentrating all his time on making money for many years forgetting to have a family.

He thought to himself that he has no chance anymore for the happiness, what being a father could bring, but when he laid his eyes for the first time to Evelyn, a hope was born especially when he learned the financial problem of Evelyn’s father.

He succeeds in his quest to have a family by marrying Evelyn, but he did know what it would be, to have a teenager as a wife who do not love him. If Evelyn does not want him, he could accept it; he can do nothing but he hopes that the pregnancy of Evelyn would be okay, as they know already from the doctor that it would be a son.

A son was born. Nelson was overwhelming happy and my parents too, but not me. I thought to myself what would be my life having a baby? Imagine, what could you say about me if I told you, Doctor Edgar Montero that I feel no feelings to my son? I just look at the face of that human being that came out from me, and that was enough, after that, the Nanny, that Nelson hired, was the mother of my son Sonny, who Nelson had named after his father. Am I egoistic, or what? I never asked who was with the baby nor look at him. After just a month I gave birth to that baby, I return to dissolute life, I had learnt to enjoy, totally forgetting that I am a married woman and have a son. Together with Amalia we were always on parties, disco, gambling, drinking, you name it all, and it was the money of Nelson that made it possible. I thought now, maybe I am a She-devil, heartless and bad. My parents were worried to what I am doing. ***to be continued ***Remedios Dorio