Chapter 2 : 9 Years Later

(September 6, 1971)

Ding-dong!

I rushed down to check the person who is madly ringing the doorbell on such an early morning only to find out it was the Western Union mailman.

A letter has arrived to our home. Mother and Tommy were out on a vacation so I was left alone inside the house.

For the past nine years, mother and I still weren't on good terms. And for the love of God, of those years, every day I kept on quarrelling with her husband.

When I reach the age of seventeen, mother urged me to move out. It came as a huge surprised for me but she insisted that I am already at a marriageable age and that I should seriously think of building my own family.

This house belongs to my father. Every single memory of us together whether it was a sad or a happy one is enclosed to this residence. My father cherished this house the most and yet mother wants to take it away from me.

I wiped the tear that suddenly fell from my eye. I went to my room and took out a paper knife. I read the contents of the letter and found out that it was actually addressed to my father.

My brows knitted in one line. It has been years since father died, and why is this letter only being delivered now? I quickly flip the envelope encasing the letter looking for the information of the sender. Ireland.

The original country where the letter was sent is from a country named Ireland. Did my father have some friends living there who don't know he passed away many years ago? Vince Karlyle.

I’ve read his name out loud. Skimming through the letter, it's saying that there is a house that was granted to my father. The letter includes a copy of a "will and testament" and some papers with seal stamps on them. So someone died and randomly named my father as the inheritor? I tried to recall my father's life story and was disappointed that we literally know nothing of his past except that he's an orphan and that he grew up by the mercy of the nuns in the orphanage where he took shelter until he's fifteen years old.

My father was never a communicative type of person. He never told us about his past and even when he's suffering and in pain, he kept the truth from us and always showed us his smiling face. Not until the cancer took over his body did we know that it was already on a very advanced stage and that he only has a month to live. Little by little, his body gave up until it leads to his death.

Now, Father is long gone but then he suddenly received a property from a random individual. I stood up and opened my room's window. I felt the sudden blow of the cold September wind. It's the fall season wherein the leaves of the trees are gradually changing colors and the daylight is getting shorter.

Waited for Mother and Tommy to arrive after their vacation as I without hesitation told her the words, ‘Mother, I want to travel to Ireland.’ As I expected she starts to nag me about my abrupt decision but this time I will never back down. After long discussions and explanations, she finally agreed but on one condition, she will go there with me.

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