Neneng

I'm coming back. I left my phone charging by the main door, read the Neneng's text message, timestamped at Wednesday, 9 pm. 

I don't read it until early morning the next day. My phone is in perpetual sleep mode when I'm at home, but I do check it in regular intervals for urgent messages, which I don't, in my profession, get a lot of. 

She came back to the house that night, but we were all asleep, the gate locked. From the street, you can see a dim illumination from the wide front glass window, giving our home the aura of an old library: quiet and peaceful, shielded from the worries of the outside world. It probably didn't help that Paul, who forgets his job description as canine guardian at night, couldn't be bothered to bark, despite Neneng's plea. Paul is so adorable but it gets in your nerves when he ignores you intentionally. 

I must remember to remind Neneng to get us a new doorbell soon.

Neneng, whose real name is Generose, clocks in at 7 am to cook us breakfast, does household chores and groceries, and leaves in the afternoon, after she finishes cooking dinner. In our town, we call that the "stay out" arrangement: she reports for work at day time and comes home to her family at night. There are moments, such as a few days ago (because of a medical urgency involving Nanay), when we'd ask her to spend the night on occasions when we'd away. For house-sitting. There's not a lot of work to be done at home, but Neneng works incessantly, fixing and cleaning and wiping corners we often forget about. 

Get some rest, Neng! Turn on the aircon in Manong's room and take a nap. You're not getting any younger, you know?

But she won't hear of it. Sige lang bala. Daw magkasakit ako kung wala gina-obra.

This morning, on her day off, she knocks on the gate to retrieve her phone. I don't see her phone near the main door. 

Try ko nga i-miss kol.

The phone, it turns out, is inside Nanay's room. Last night, Nanay must have moved it from the living room to her bed room to keep it safe. 

As I hand the phone over to her, she tells me, Nakapasa na si Jezelle ba. Jezelle, her daughter who just took the board exam for medical technology; Jezelle, who borrows some of my books (Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, for instance) and returns them neat, with covers wrapped in plastic with loving care.

Nanay gets up and basks in the great news. Neneng says her husband Uncle Toto teared up with joy, and she did, too, and so did the entire family, who had been praying for Jezelle's success.