6IN NOVEMBER THAT year the temperature dipped lower than my tropical body was used to. Also, Pobrito turned 17. She didn’t tell us it was her birthday, but Dad read her
records from the orphanage and noted it down. Dad and I baked a chocolate cake, although between the two of us, the kitchen was our place of dread. The icing was too sweet even for the ants and
half of the cake sagged. Pobrito was quite moved by the spectacle. She said she had never been given a cake for her birthday, her voice breaking.
“I wish you stay here always,” she said.
I was playing a Chopin Etude, and had to stop and turn around to stare at Dad. “But we’re not, right?”
Dad pulled my jacket hood over my head. “Don’t rain on Pobrito’s parade.”
“Really? I thought after that cake, well, anything goes.”
That aft
