Patron Saints of Nothing

by Randy Ribay

“Forty days? Let me know when they’ve been here for forty years.” He mutters something to himself in Tagalog, and then holds his arms out as if to encompass the room. “I know you knew nothing when you arrived, but have you learned nothing today? Our country’s history is full of invading foreigners who thought they knew us better than we knew ourselves. And many of us believed them over and over again. Many of us welcomed them with open arms, learned their language, joined their churches, asked for positions in their crooked governments.” He folds his arms over his chest again, turns his face back toward the painting, and shakes his head. “No more.”

Grace laughs, then leans back into me. I put my arms around her again. It’s nice—to be here for her in Jun’s place. To love and to be loved. In the short span of a few days, she’s become a new sister instead of a cousin I’ve seen only a handful of times in my life. But, hell, even Em and I never hold each other like this. Nobody in my family does. I don’t know why. This, too, feels right. We stay like that for a few minutes. I wonder at our hidden depths. We all have this same intense ability to love running through us. It wasn’t only Jun. But for some reason, so many of us don’t use it like he did. We keep it hidden. We bury it until it becomes an underground river. Until we barely remember it’s there. Until it’s too far down to tap. But maybe it’s time to dig it up. To let the sun hit the water. To let it flood. Baha.

But there are good things I can hold on to and there are other things I have the power to change. My family, myself, this world—all of us are flawed. But flawed doesn’t mean hopeless. It doesn’t mean forsaken. It doesn’t mean lost. We are not doomed to suffer things as they are, silent and alone. We do not have to leave questions and letters and lives unanswered. We have more power and potential than we know if we would only speak, if we would only listen.