PREVIOUSLY: And so the portly penpal penpal bride  who was jilted by her groom within 24 hours of their first meeting was eventually married in lavish ceremonies witnessed by close to a thousand guests and admirers.

 
The aftermath of Filipino weddings, big or small, is invariably bleak for the parents of the newly weds. In the Philippines where the parents of the groom usually foot the bill, the euphoria of having staged an impressive show of one’s wealth is soon eclipsed by the anxiety of dealing with, excuse the pun, the wedding bills.
 
Rico, however, did not expect his widowed mother Conchita to pay for anything. He and his siblings have in fact financially supported their mother since their father died. But for the old woman this was her big and only opportunity to “return” the favour. She had no money of her own because everything that Conchita received from Rico she had put in rebuilding their family home, now boasting six spacious en-suite bedrooms and three living rooms, one each for the children, their parents and the grandparents that were expected to constantly come visiting.
 
Conchita’s children jointly owned the family general store that she was overseeing and their respective spouses maintained a strict book of accounts. Whoever participated either as investor or shopkeeper was rewarded their appropriate share of the profit at the end of every quarter, so there was no sizeable cash lying around somewhere that Conchita could “borrow” in times like this.
 
Conchita knew all along that everything, from the icing on the cake down to the paving of the pathways, was taken cared of, but she nevertheless insisted on paying for something substantial for the wedding. Rico and Ildefonsa would not hear of it, but in the end, the couple reluctantly agreed thinking that Conchita through the years might have squirreled some money in preparation for this eventuality.
 
Conchita did not tell them that she was going to pawn her most treasured possession, the diamond solitaire ring that her late husband Manuel gave her on their tenth wedding anniversary.
 
The local pawnshop offered 50,000 pesos for it but the lurking town usurer Lolita suddenly barged into the scene and sweet-talked Conchita into an 80,000-peso deal. Despite Lolita’s sleazy reputation, Conchita in her excitement trusted the usurer with her flawless diamond ring without examining Lolita’s illegal and cunning terms and conditions.
 
Eighty thousand pesos meant that Conchita could pay for the fares and hotel accommodations of her own personal out of town guests— people that she literally forced to be at the wedding. The list consisted of friends and secret rivals alike that she wanted to impress and be envious, most of whom expressed “reluctance” because of the expenses the trip would entail. Now Conchita has found the solution.
 
For a widow of her means the gesture was immense and gave her a sense of importance. She felt left out and inadequate in the midst of all the great fuss and generous contributions that poured in from all directions during the frantic build up to the biggest wedding ever in Ildefonsa’s town.
 
At the reception the personal guests of Conchita were, of course, impressed by the scale of the feast. Two tourist coaches conveyed them in air-conditioned comfort between their hotel in the city and the reception site 80 kilometres away. As far as Conchita was concerned, she was the star of the show as her personal guests acknowledged her generosity by gushing at her dress and laughing at her jokes.
 
After the guests were gone and the bride and groom were hundreds of miles away on their honeymoon, Conchita was suddenly hit by the reality of raising the eighty-thousand pesos to redeem her diamond ring.
 
In her quandary she felt very alone and cried at night wishing to every saint in her altar that her late husband were alive to help her out of her misery. She has done the unimaginable by losing a very precious memento which was a surprise gift on their 10th wedding anniversary.
 
She saw no point in discussing her dilemma with Rico and Ildefonsa because the couple had always been staunchly against her ostentatious and unwise idea of paying for the importation of a bunch of people who were not exactly very keen to attend the wedding anyway.
 
The make a long story short, Conchita lost her cherished diamond ring to the cunning Lolita. She had only herself to blame for her imprudence but instead of confessing to Rico what had happened, she kept quiet but converted her remorse to anger and focused it on Ildefonsa.
 
Conchita was literally beatified when she crossed rivers and seas and lumbered through concrete jungles and rice paddies to convert a tragedy into a romantic fairy tale. It was, however, not selfless maternal love as we originally suspected that fuelled her determination to amend the blunder committed by her son against the innocent Ildefonsa.
 
The heroic stunt was really all about her. Conchita went through a high-profile rejection too and while her ordeal ended “happily” as well, the harrowing experience haunted her for life. Conchita’s own wedding you see nearly did not happen even if she was already heavy with child.
 
But why did Conchita make the sweet and unsuspecting Ildefonsa suffer? Actually, Conchita had nothing against Ildefonsa in particular although even before she had met her in person, Conchita was already scheming to give her, or any bride or Rico’s for that matter, a hard time.
 
When Rico explained the fiasco in Chicago to her mother, Conchita surmised Ildefonsa to be a coy and simple person, just the type that she could tyrannize for her own amusement. Conchita engineered the reunion of her son with the unwary Ildefonsa primarily because she wanted a new daughter- in-law to oppress.
 
Conchita was the last person to acknowledge however that her strange behaviour was an offshoot of the cruelty she suffered in the hands of her own mother-in-law. Conchita had two daughters-in-law before Ildefonsa, the wives of Rico’s two younger brothers who married ahead of Rico. But Leonor (Manuel Jr.’s wife) and Josephine (Andy’s) were very strong women who never succumbed to Conchita’s incessant attempts to subjugate them. Both daughters-in-law were aware that Conchita’s animosity was baseless. They both perceived a determination to be cruel for its own sake for as far as they were concerned there were no obvious reasons for Conchita to resent them. In the end they simply ignored her bizarre behaviour and attributed it to senility.
 
Leonor was a school teacher and she handled Conchita’s unpleasant behaviour as if she were a hopelessly naughty student at school. Josephine, on the other hand, was adept at handling all sorts of time wasters at her clerical job at the local municipal hall so that Conchita’s unsubstantiated tantrums were a minor irritant compared to her daily routine at work.
 
Leonor and Josephine did not have to work actually, because Manuel Jr. and Andy were doing well in Saudi Arabia, earning more than enough for their needs and there was also the grocery store to help manage and run. But as soon as their children were old enough to leave in the care of a baby sitter, the girls rushed back to their old jobs just to avoid being with Conchita either at home or at the grocery store. The three women jointly owned the grocery store and had to meet regularly to talk about the details of running it, but other than that, Leonor and Josephine did everything to avoid being with Conchita for more than ten minutes.
 
Conchita’s behaviour to her two grandchildren was the exact opposite. She absolutely adored them. Not only did Conchita shower Leonor’s two-year-old daughter Len-Len with beautiful dresses and pamper Josephine’s one-year-old son Andy Junior with the latest toys, she also personally looked after them when their mothers were at work. Conchita even paid for the two baby sitters who minded the two kids when her attention was required at the grocery store where they also have two hired assistants.
 
To be continued
 
 

 

 

Munting Nayon News Magazine