A BAG OF HEARTEACH TIME she visited Quiapo – with her mother or cousins, for she had never been allowed to go out alone, except now, because her
mother was ill and her cousins were vacationing in Baguio – each time, there would be a discovery, and thoughts arrived like butterflies, fluttering, hovering, intimately over her as though
she were some delicate, beautiful flower.
Every Friday her mother would carry inside her camisa a bag of coins (Tita Loleng hoards coins, Fe, alarmed was the look in Cousin Neya’s eyes; and her mother hushed her
cousin, Look, Neya, these are for God and His children) which she would now and then touch outside, and say, smiling, “Fe, hija, one must learn to love God through his neighbors
– no, not just neighbors Tasya or Mang Lucio or Tocayang Loleng, no –
