“Tessa, where’s my coffee?” Johnny grumbled.

“Just one more second, I’m sorry,” Tessa called out from the kitchen as she heard Johnny flipped through the pages of the daily paper.

Dressed in a robe with her hair loosely tied, Tessa came out from the kitchen to serve Johnny his coffee. It’s already 6:30 in the morning and Johnny has to leave in five minutes to avoid the rush hour in the expressway. He punches in the office at 8 sharp.

“Here,” Tessa said as she placed the cup of coffee in front of Johnny—his plate of bacon, eggs, and mashed potato were completely untouched. The only sign of movement in the table was the slightly askew utensils from Johnny’s elbows as he read the paper.

He barely looked up as Tessa pulled the chair beside him and helped herself to a serving of bacon and mashed potato. He folded the newspaper away and took a sip of the coffee.

“How many times do I have to remind you? Just a teaspoon of cream will do it!” Johnny snapped at Tessa’s face like a snake spitting out venom for a potential kill.

“Fucking teaspoon,” Johnny mumbled and shook his head as he got up and left the table.

Tessa remained silent as if she had been alone in the room forever. She listened to the front door click shut and heaved a sigh of relief. In fact, if any one looked closely, she was practically smiling.

Johnny’s coffee had two sugars and just one cream. Tessa had memorized it since they got engaged which was seven years ago. She has been making it exactly the way she made it on their first bed and breakfast together in Tagaytay. She knew the coffee was perfect, but she also knew that for a lack of things to say, for a lack of things to talk about, Johnny could never open his mouth except to snap at her. Johnny, too, was aware that the coffee only had a teaspoon of cream but he had unlearned the method of kissing his wife goodbye before going to work.

It was a Friday; Tessa knows Johnny wouldn’t be home until after past midnight or tomorrow before lunch. She knows he’s been having an affair with their secretary for the last five years. It all started with a teeny tiny news that was revealed to them a year after they got married—Tessa is sterile and would always be. The only advice the doctor told them was to keep trying and to keep praying. There was no hope for little Johnny Jr. and big Johnny’s way of coping with this was to have an affair with his voluptuous and shrilly secretary. And so, like Johnny’s weekday plate of bacon, eggs and mashed potato, Tessa had remained untouched for the last five years.

“Ma’am?” a little voice spoke from inside the kitchen. It was Manang Lita, their 46-year-old stay out maid who never said anything except the words “Ma’am.” She could say “Sir” but never found the necessity and the situation to say it because she steered clear of Johnny.

“Manang, come and join me for breakfast,” Tessa invited.

Manang Lita smiled, her toothless gums revealed and shook her head slowly, timidly, like a child being asked to introduce herself on the first day of kindergarten.

“Can you tell Mang Toto to prepare the car and we’ll leave by 10:00 after I take a bath?” Tessa requested as she finished her breakfast and carried them to the kitchen.

Manang Lita nodded. Toto is her younger brother. They have been working for the Benitez’ for almost five years as well.

“Thank you Manang,” Tessa smiled as she untied her hair and headed upstairs to their room.

She examined the bed she shared with Johnny. It was neat, almost as if no one had slept on it. She began to imagine how beds of couples appeared in sappy romantic comedies. They looked like an elephant and a monkey were chasing each other under the covers. Or maybe a cheetah and a gazelle. She had been wishing to wake up to a bed as messy as those, but all it has ever been was snoring and the obvious effort to avoid touching each other’s skin—the pillows on the two sides were closer to the edges than the center of the bed. Instead of being gravitated into each other’s weight, they have learned how to courteously repel each other for the last half decade like the opposite poles of magnets.

Tessa walked to the front of the mirror as she took of her robe and looked at herself in her silver satin nightgown. She pinched her arms and shrugged her shoulders and shifted sideways. She has maintained her 90-pound body for the whole of her married life. She used to weigh about a 150 when Johnny and she were just dating. They both loved to eat. Name the cuisine and they would have the perfect restaurant or diner in mind. He used to adore Tessa’s home-cooked pesto and pizza for he absolutely was frantic for Italian cuisine but now he wouldn’t even come home in time to share dinner with her.

In the shower, Tessa reminisced for the millionth time how Johnny proposed to her. It was a rainy Friday night, and one of their college friends had a send-off party in Tagaytay. Since there was a storm, they both decided to spend the night in one of the bed and breakfast inns that they found. She remembered just how passionate Johnny made love to her, he had always been attentive to her needs and not once had he ever left her unsatisfied. He was a myth-buster of male stereotypes for Tessa. They showered in the morning together before they checked out of the bed and breakfast, and just as both of them were lathered in suds and bath foam, Johnny kneeled in front of her and proposed:

“Before I even swallow this piece of expensive jewelry,” Johnny croaked as he spit out the ring from his mouth, “Will you marry me, Maria Teresa Belarmino?”

“Oh my god!” Tessa broke into laughter, “I thought it was the water or the suds that made you talk like that!”

A few days later, Johnny asked her while chuckling to himself, “Did you get my proposal?”

“Yes, yes. I did, you goof,” Tessa rolled her eyes, “It was…”

“An indecent proposal!” they both exclaimed.

Tessa laughed a little bit as she rinsed herself. She laughed carefully and with much restraint for she knew that if she didn’t watch out, her laughter will soon turn into tears which often happened when she reminisced about her good times with Johnny.

She looked at her wedding ring and how unnecessary it is for her to wear it now, and yet she still wore it every day. She secretly anticipated for the day that Johnny would leave his wedding ring by his night stand, she secretly anticipated for that day that she would wake up and not find him on the other side of the bed. She secretly wished that one day he would be man enough to leave her. Unfortunately, he had been a coward for half a decade now. He would beat her up emotionally by making her feel like she was useless, but he was always so guilty that he still came home each night as much as possible to make her feel that she’s not alone.

Tessa never felt guilty that she was barren, she never felt like it was her fault her marriage was falling apart. In fact, she never cared that Johnny was having liaisons with their office clerk. All she wanted, all she was waiting for, was Johnny’s decision. It had to be his move, for if she’s the one who decided to leave, it would be a redundant decision.

Tessa already left Johnny years ago. It happened the night they found out that she was barren:

“We could adopt.”

Tessa could hear Jonny’s heavy breaths.

“It wouldn’t be the same, Teresa,” he said. His tone was flat and uninterested.

Teresa shrugged, “I’ll just take a job then.”

“Are you stupid?” Johnny blurted, “You can’t even give me a child, now you want to work?”

“Johnny, I’m barren! I’m not an invalid! God!” Tessa slammed the car door closed and raced inside the house to the bedroom.

“Tessa!” Johnny ran after her, his steps shaking the whole house.

To be continued