"Don't tell me what to do!"

"Lani, please!"

Marching through the pouring rain, Lani's anger lessens by the chilling beads from the sky. Her anger bubbles up again when her friend, David, chases her from the coffee shop she had just left.

"They will cut you off if you keep it!"

"Do I look like I give a shit, David? They always criticize every choice I've made and never taught me after! Not a big loss."

"The money they have—"

"No use if they won't give money to my baby. My job isn't lucrative, but enough for both of us."

Her belly bump isn't big yet.

It's been months since she last slept with Sammy, in spite of the late lovers' advice.

Sammy has gone to his home country since last month. Not once did he pick up her calls and messages until he blocked all of her ways of contact last week. Left Lani devastated for three days straight. Barely ate, slept, and cleaned herself up, although she bucked up for her baby at last.

She didn't tell him she was pregnant, knowing it would push him away. He would've forced her to abort their baby, even though it was his fault for pressuring her into unprotected sex. Luckily, she doesn't get any STD or disease after a last-ditch effort at making him faithful.

He fled without reason. She should've taken her giant friends' advice, but she is too in love with him.

Her parents have never been supportive, only financially when she followed their choice of career. Her friends come and go. Her giant friends... didn't take her as their friend, but she understood about their travels. The little bean in her belly is the permanent love she hopes for. In hopes she will raise them to be a better person than everyone she knows, including herself.

David scolds, "Think about this!"

"Already did. For three months."

"During that time, Sammy still—"

Lani huffs. "Sammy doesn't influence my decision about this. I love him but I'll love this baby more. You know how I've always wanted children."

She enters her car. Before she can shut her door, David yanks it back and exclaims, "Not like this. Not when the child is a part of him. They'll remind you of him."

"They will grow up to be their own person, no matter whose genes they inherit. I'll move on. With my baby."

David groans in surrender and lets the door go. She slams the door shut and her friend walks away.

Staring at the blurry windshield and stroking her belly, she whispers, "I'll give you a better life than I ever have. Ho'ohiki wau iā 'oe, e lilo wau i makuahine maika'i loa."

____________________

"Bitty!"

Little Bituin moves away from her Barbie dollhouses and skips down the stairs to her mother, Nik, and father, Aiden, who are lounging in their grand living room.

"Ano ito, nanay?"

Nik beams and envelops her. "My baby, you'll have a baby sister! A miracle! After years of trying—"

Bituin gasps, appalled. "I don't want it!" She wriggles out of her mother's hug.

Aiden holds her shoulders firmly, close to reproaching. "Ano ang mali, Bitty?"

"Tatay! She replace me! Nanay will give more love to her!"

"Aking mahal"—Nik clicks her tongue with a fond expression—"we'll love both of you equally. She will be your best friend too."

"I don't want a best friend! I want my nanay and tatay only!" Bituin runs up to her bedroom. Aiden furiously calls her name but Nik calms him down, knowing the girl needs more time to adjust.

Bituin throws herself dramatically on her bed and screams into an expensive pillow. She doesn't want to compete for her mother's affection with her supposed 'best friend'.

"This won't do," she talks to herself.

Devious thoughts enter her mind. She may bully her sister into being her servant. Steal cookies from her tatay, do her math homework, and anything! She giggles, thinking of her plans for the future.

"Bitty, can I come in?" Nik knocks on the door and she tentatively opens it, facing little Bitty's sulking face.

"Nanay, if tatay buys me a new Polly Pocket car, maybe I'll be nice."

Nik purses her lips at that, often thinking about her husband spoiling their daughter a bit too much. Now a bribe? To her, this cannot escalate any further. "No."

"Nanay—"

"No. Huwag kailanman subukang manipulahin ang tulad nito."

Bitty shoots an odd look at her mother. "Manipulate, nanay?"

Nik sighs. Her daughter is just seven years old; she doesn't fully grasp the concept of manipulation yet. Nik plans to give Aiden an earful. "Baby, listen to me."

Bituin, in an instant, feels nervous when her mother is stern towards her.

"Toys. Dolls. Pretty clothes. They will not be with you forever. Remember that."

"Tatay give me everything."

"But not forever, aking mahal. He's not God. He's just a human, like you and me." Nik hugs her daughter, tender. "With people, however... With the right people, their love for you will be forever."

Bituin scrunches her face about it. "How do you know the baby will love me, nanay?"

Her mother kisses her temple and says something that'll make her think for days. "You have to be the right person to love her first."

____________________

"Push, Ms. Nohealani! A bit more!"

Lani screams while pushing the baby out after hours of pain. In sweat and blood, she's determined for her baby to live. Not long after, she hears her baby's beautiful cries.

"It's a boy."

Lani laughs in pure joy with tears and heavy breaths, asking to hold her baby. She coos at him, feeling love for him by the second. The doctor checks her and goes out for a moment.

The nurse asks, "Uh... Miss?"

"Yes?"

"Is there no one to...?" The nurse seems very hesitant to finish the question.

"No family, husband, and friends."

"No one at all?"

Even David left Lani when she refused his demand to abort her baby. She learnt that he had been liking her since high school from his confession. Nevertheless, she doesn't feel down as much. She is ever grateful to receive a large sum of money from Nik, her temporary friend who had left the island and her life, to pay the bills and survive in the meantime.

"I have my son right here."

"Okay— Woah." The nurse peers to see the child.

"My son's eyes?"

"His eyes are special. Color like his father's?"

The boy's curious viridian eyes are looking everywhere when Lani breastfeeds him. "No. This little bean is unique. But has the same dark shade as his father's."

Colours of rain on a grassy meadow.

____________________

Bituin sits beside her nanny on the chairs, worrying about her mother. The hospital's blank walls do nothing to ease her when she listens to her mother's painful sounds.

It's in the middle of the night when Nik's water broke. Bituin insisted on coming with them despite she has school tomorrow. Aiden finally decided she'd skip school for a day.

She then hears her. The baby's cries. But she has to wait for a while, too long for her liking as she keeps listening to it, and not a sound from her mother.

Finally, Aiden exits the room and smiles toothily behind sleepiness. "Halika salubungin mo ang iyong maliit na kapatid na babae." His hand links with hers and slowly leads her into the room, where Nik is holding the baby in her arms on the hospital bed.

"Nanay?"

Nik is exhausted but glad that her baby is safe and sound. "Aking mahal, come here."

Bituin moves closer to the bed and observes the crying baby, almost touching her mother's stomach. Nik gently holds her hand and redirects it to her lips instead. Bituin doesn't question it, except saying, "She sounds deep."

"Her throat hasn't adapted yet."

Bituin glances sceptically at her father's assumption. Nik breastfeeds the newborn.

"She looks... scary."

"Bitty!"

"No, tatay! I mean, she's scary like intidate— Intiimadi..."

"Intimidating?"

"Yes, nanay! Cute but intimidating."

Nik laughs a tad. Never had Bituin seen a baby who frowns a lot when she looks around. Might be harder to bully her baby sister than she thought after all. Might be...

That the baby will keep searching for the eyes of rain and meadow until she finds him.

Dust to dust
Atom to atom
Succeeding names will resound
As a devotion's silent anthem