The Fisherman's Wife

The clock read 4AM.

The darkest hour, when those flickering, fickle stars finally leave the moon alone to its musings. A melancholic spotlight lighting up the dark horizon that envelops the sea.

Corazon is already up and about, hustling in her kitchen. The rich, bittersweet aroma of sikwate warming on top of the glowing embers on the dapog slices through the cold November air.

It’s time, she mumbles to herself.

Scurrying, she takes her knitted shawl from the makeshift coat rack. Two rusty nails behind their bedroom door. Tarnished old nails, where Rustico hangs his patched-up jacket beside her shawl.

In a minute, she was already at the pantalan. Just as she had been before dawn yesterday, and the days before. To meet him with her worn-out icebox and pail, it’s once green plastic make now blackened on the sides.

Time is slow when one is waiting. But at least, she was not alone. Flanked on both sides by the other wives, mothers, and sisters waiting for the men, the wait became less worrisome.

She knew the sea like a sister. And sometimes, like her self. She had learned and grown familiar with its movement. Revered its calm demeanor and the bounties it gave freely. Feared its furious billows that could swallow up Rustico and take him to its bottom, where its deepest secrets lay, and keep him there forever.

She knew its sorrows. She had heard and understood the sad tune it sang for its lover, Habagat. How it felt when it was kissed by the wind. Warm when it was cold. Cool when it was warm. How those kisses made it throb and roll over, flowing and ebbing with every touch.

She felt its pain each time it parted with its love, for Habagat had other things to do, places to visit, businesses to take care of. And the rapture it felt with each reunion.

Sea and Habagat were like Corazon and Rustico.

In the distance, kerosene lamps flickered like tiny yellow stars floating on the pitch-black water. Like candles in a procession, shining midway through the darkness, growing bigger and bigger, drawing closer and closer to each other as the boats approached the pantalan.

Just then, a strong wind blew from the west, breaking the line of yellow lights as the boats rocked with the tides formed by its tail. An instant chill ran through her spine, but warm blood soon rushed over her veins as she caught sight of an orange baroto riding calmly through the clutter of lights, jutting up and down the crests and falls as though its lord had mastered the wind and the waves’ erratic periods.

It was him. Rustico, with his steady hands and keen senses.

He had come through, expecting to meet her by the jetty, to receive the bounties the sea had allowed him to take and give to his lover. And she was there, just as she had been before dawn yesterday, and the days before.

Waiting.