Papa walked out of the bank in his blue-stained shirt, a man who didn’t believe he should be alive. Mama says his survival is a blessing, but for Papa it is also a curse. I could see this in the way he piled the newspapers neatly on the coffee table, in the great care he took to tie his shoelaces. He had the unfocused eyes of someone who didn’t want to see too much.
After Papa and Mama and Marisa left, Emil and I went to Baguio. The days dragged without them and Emil and I were caught in that long moment before the rains began. Everyday we watched the bananas grow heavier on our tree. Standing in the brown grass, or even hidden in the house, we grew heavier too. Finally Emil said, “Let’s go to Baguio.”
This was only a week after they had left. Emil made arrangements at work, he called So
