The play became a success and many of the student participants knew that they did a good job. No parent is as happy as Larry who is all the more jubilant to see how great his children are on stage. Together with Finz and his kid, they all head out to the school’s parking lot where their car is parked.
As they’re about to leave the premises, Larry came across a familiar face.
“Marla?”
Marla was watching them from afar but she doesn’t want her husband nor even her kids to see her. She ran but Larry followed her, trying to know what’s going on. He had Finz look after the twins in the meantime.
He looked everywhere inside the school. Feeling hopeless, he texted Finz and told him to let the twins stay at his house for the night. Just as he was about to search elsewhere, he heard sound as if someone’s coughing really hard.
The sound is comin from the girl’s restroom. Thinking that no other person is there except who he thought is in it, he went inside. He caught Marla at the most unfortunate time:
She was throwing up blood.
“MARLA?!”
“Larry? What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you but I saw you….here and…”
“Yes honey…I know what you’re thinking. I have cancer?”
“SINCE WHEN?!!”
“I had this since I was a little girl…”
“But…I don’t understand. I mean–“
“My family has a long history of having cancer…but it’s a long story, Larry. I just don’t want you to bear the fact that i’m dying!”
“No, I want to know! Never once have you told me anything that makes you feel any comfortable! You never uttered a single word of what you wanna have instead. I just don’t get why AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, you just—let it happen. I don’t get you Marla, even after all the years we’ve been together, I thought everything between us is okay…”
“IT’S BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID, LARRY! I’m afraid of what you’d think of me once you found out I have cancer in all the years we’ve been together…”
“If you told me sooner, I would have helped you!”
“There’s nothing that you can do Larry! I found a lump on my breast seven months ago. I made a visit to the doctor and received the WORST PIECE NEWS I HAD IN MY WHOLE LIFE…that I have Stage 3 breast cancer.”
Marla broke into tears…
“I thought I was recessive because both of my parents didn’t have cancer. But I knew that sooner or later I’ll be the one with a genetic disease! But early on, I already planned out my life but everything was out of control!”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for something none of us has any control with it…You just have t be strong…”, Larry tried to comfort her.
“Strong?! Is THIS what you called “strong”?”, Marla points to herself as she continues. “The reason I filed the damn annulment is because I don’t want to live with some guy who always think that everything’s going to be okay. Guess what? I’m NOT OKAY?! The moment I learned that I was pregnant, I thought the world is going to end.”
Larry tries to reason with her but she’s blinded by her anger towards the poor guy.
“Because of those kids, I never had the chance to live a life free of worries and responsibilities. At least I only have me and my family to worry about. And I have my own dreams that I want to fulfill. But because of you, none of what I want to achieve in my is ever going to happen.”
“Yes I know but we can’t changed what happened. Even if we didn’t married, you know you’re still going to have OUR kids whether you like it or not!”, said Larry.
“But that’s just IT! Aughh, Larry! Don’t you get it?! I never wanted to have kids to begin with? I don’t want them to inherit the kind of disease that I have…Hell, I don’t even want them to suffer the same fate as I am having now!”
After hearing all of these things, Larry collected his thought for a minute before he could say anything else.
“And that’s the reason you want to annul our marriage? To get away from me and from our own children, not knowing that you are dying from something we can’t cure?”
“Honey, you know how much I love you. You mean so much to me. The moment I laid my eyes on you I know from that point on that you’re going to be the one I want to be with for the rest of my life. Life as we know is never what we intent to be but we have to embrace life as it is. We made a mistake but this mistake became our pride and joy, and they’re two of them. It’s impossible that after all these years you didn’t learn to love your own children? You gave brith to them for God’s sake. And you showing up for our kids’ play tonight meant something for sure…”
And from that point on, Marla made a life-changing realization. She cannot turn her back as a mother for her own two children. She knew that she cannot avoid the problem she made years ago. Marla did love Larry for the right reasons, it’s just that her ambition to live her life in full had her blinded from the very things she want to achieve in life.
All of these she said to Larry just before…
“Marla…Marla? MARLA?”
To be continued…
