ANGEL OF THE LORD: Angel of the Lord Novel (Part 21) By Jose Leveriza II

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Father and sons were ecstatic. They reveled in the trappings of their success. Abe Potenciano was a jeweler with a solid and growing reputation in San Pablo City in the province of Laguna, the richest province in the Philippines. It was a scenic drive of about an hour south of the Capital. The scenery reminded you of Orange County in California except for the occasional rice paddies tilled with real live carabaos bearing the ever present cluster of farmers’ thatched huts.

Together with his driven wife Paula, Abe built a prosperous jewelry business from scratch and nurtured it to lucrative heights from a fledgling hole in the wall carved out of the garage at his grandfather’s house near the market. Abe’s own father negotiated with the patriarch to grant it rent free concession to help him along in gaining a stable footing. The twenty square meter beginnings graduated to two hundred in the biggest mall fronting the town main square.

The Potencianos on Abe’s side of the family as well as the Cabreras on Paula’s end were landowning class. While most members of the twin clans elected a more laid back lifestyle choosing to be reliant on the on the forty five days cycle of coconut harvests from the landholdings, Abe and Paula strove to eke out a fortune of their own. It was an ingenious move.

Some members of the family who became doctors and professionals tended to sell off their inheritance and move on. It was different for Abe and Paula. They used the proceeds accumulated from their business to buy off the clan members who wanted to sell out. In a roundabout way they grew to end up owning most of the clan property to the chagrin of the overshadowed holdovers.

The persistence and hard work paid off in great dividends from the enterprise but drew brickbats from envious clan old boys. They claimed that Abe should have ascribed equity value to the twenty square meter space in the garage of old and should have recognized that as capital participation coming from the old man entitled to half a share in the growing venture. Abe countered that the house ended up being divided among the heirs of the grandfather Don Manuel Potenciano, out of which Abe’s branch through his father Daniel received a fifth portion. Ergo, the rent free concession stemmed from that and nothing more could be legally convoluted to mean stock participation in the take off of the jewelry business.

Paris Double Vanity

Walnut Kitchen Island

The lifestyle level of the indolent segment suffered a decline whenever the land legacy was divvied up among the inheritors. The parcels shrunk in proportion to the number of entitlements. Thus as the lifestyle of Abe’s faction soared to astounding heights, the rest grew cobwebs in moribund bottoms. This led to petty conflicts in the beginning and escalated to more serious boundary and proprietary skirmishes as the rumblings of jealousy and reproaches increased in decibels.

It worsened the imbalance to see Abe’s children blaze successful career paths through college and professional stature. Lara, Abe’s eldest girl, clinched a nursing diploma and progressed with keen vision to land a much sought after position in a top Chicago hospital. Fifty thousand dollars a year as salary when multiplied by forty times to arrive at local revenue drew uuh’s and aah’s from the neighborhood pundits. Abe and Paula beamed with pride and always referred to it as part of the fruits of labor.

Abe’s main antagonist in the family circle was the barrel-chested breast thumping Maddox who took pride in leading the forays to protect the family acreage from poachers or encroachers. When communist insurgents trooped down from the neighboring Bondoc peninsula to try to establish a foothold on the other side of the Holy Mountain, Mt. Banahaw, Maddox drew plaudits for the active role he played in repelling them. Risking his life to benefit the security of the inherited lands of the clan, Maddox thought wrong or right, vested in him a license to impose his will in the resolution of internal boundary disputes in the clan councils.

Maddox pegged his destiny to the land and so did his children. Michael, the eldest, and Abner, the boy after a series of girls who either eloped or were impregnated out of wedlock, both failed to finish college. They stuck to the close environs afforded by the lay of the land which their father inherited and much like him lost their ingenuity and drive to secure for themselves a better state or place. They married their high school sweethearts and sired ever growing numbers and sizes of offspring which Maddox took joy with but daunted him with a never ending tug of financial problems. This was only a matter of course because they all chose to live off the static cycle of the coconut harvests.

Alex, the second child and the eldest boy of Abe, breezed through law school and passed the last bar exam. He was due to undertake his oath taking as a full pledged lawyer and Abe wanted to bestow on him a special gift befitting the august occasion. Abe made arrangements with an auto dealer north of the Capital which was owned by his former classmate in high school to procure a brand new 2008 Toyota Camry sedan for Alex. Both Paula and Mar the youngest son who was in his sophomore year in a computer course in college squirmed in delight in anticipation of the head spinning turn of events

Alex threaded the gas pedal so finely that the engine hummed with a purr and floated smoothly over the cement road of Taft Avenue. The white Toyota Camry gleamed brightly with a newness made more obvious by the temporary license plates which bore the words “For registration.” Alex held off on the speed and glided the car just right to avoid crossing the wayward paths of the public utility jeepneys that wove in and out of the rightmost lane.

Mar, the younger boy, frolicked in the roominess and wide leg room at the back. He rubbed his hands repeatedly on the spanking new upholstery that felt so good to the touch. Mar commented that it was opportune that he came along in the milestone event.

The plush grain of the synthetic leather seat cover gave off that luxuriant smell of new school bags on first days of school. He lazed back and smiled in delectable anticipation of the upcoming lunch ahead at his favorite Pizza place in Makati City, another thirty minutes drive past La Salle University on their route going south on the busy avenue.

Abe felt stirrings of fait accompli in his being. He leaned back on the cushiony head rest and glanced at the glowing expression on Alex’s happy countenance as he drove. It felt good to bask in the reflected glory of his son’s achievement. It even felt better than his own great strides taken to bring his jewelry business to the pinnacle of success. Now there’s only Mar to see through two more years of college and then maybe the endearments coming from grandchildren playing at his feet will be the next big step to assuring the continuation of his legacy.

Right now there were recent souring episodes that needled his recall and made him frown with tension to depart fleetingly from the pleasantness of the present. His memory took him back to that intense conflict plagued family council in the abode of the family matriarch, Dona Ester, who tried to mediate a loggerhead between Alex and Maddox. The meeting was called to thresh out the boiling impasse before it got out of control.