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In fact, the trial of the century kept getting bigger until the media was calling it “the trial of the millennium.” In the weeks following, articles teased out the fact that the couple offered a large sum to the presiding judge. The couple claimed he took it; the judge denied acceptance. The Changcos threatened to sue. Investigators confirmed a withdrawal of two million pesos had been made by the couple, though not a centavo surfaced in the accounts of the judge. Blogs poked fun at how Mr. Changco said at a press-con: “Now we are out two million pesos.” The myopic-looking Mrs. Changco quickly followed with: “And our youngest son is dead.”

But then the case turned into something almost mythical. Following the trial, the boyfriend of the murdered maid, a security guard named Wigberto Lakandula, also formerly employed by the family, vowed “violent vengeance.” A day later, Mr. and Mrs. Changco returned home to find their three prizewinning Chihuahuas beheaded in the living room of their gated home. In the past couple of weeks, the love-and-retribution story has turned Lakandula into an unwitting celebrity—as soon as the media learned that he had wooed his now dead beloved by writing songs for her and playing them on his guitar, he became a national heartthrob. Photographs of him were bought by tabloids and pop magazines at exorbitant prices. My seatmate is looking at a photo of Lakandula as a construction worker in Saudi Arabia, shirtless and muscled, leaning against a front-end loader. His smile is bright, his hard hat askew on his thick shock of black hair. Lakandula is, the caption says, currently in hiding, “a fugitive from the long arm of the law.”

*

Unable to sleep, I return to my notes. Among them are slips of paper filled with jokes, some in my handwriting. Crispin was obsessed with our oral traditions and doubly infatuated with translating Filipino humor into English. He called jokes “our true shared history,”

“our sweetly bitter commentary.”

“Jokes are the hardest things to translate,” he said. “There is a danger in not getting it right. For example, capturing how the deprecation is in actuality self-deprecation.”

“You really think so?” I countered. “I think we’re just mean.”

“No. It’s not divisive. The act of hearing a familiar punch line, the ensuing moan of corniness, that’s all unifying. Jokes are as palliative as a proverb,” he said. “Without them, we wouldn’t understand ourselves.”

And so it became a habit for Crispin and me to trade these well-worn classics, particularly the ones about our distinguished alma mater, writing them on slips of paper to pass like shibboleths when next we’d meet.

“Three male students loiter around Shoe Mart Megamall,” one note said. “One is from the exclusive Ateneo de Manila University. One from the rival De La Salle University. The third, named Erning Isip, is from the populist AMA Computer College. The three students spot a very pretty light-skinned girl. Each of the boys takes a turn at trying to woo her. The Atenenista says: ‘Why, hello there. Perhaps I should text my driver to bring my BMW around to chauffeur us to the Polo Club so we can get some gindara?’ The Lasallista says: ‘Wow, you’re so talagang pretty, as in totally ganda gorgeous. Are you hungry at all? Let’s ride my CRV and I’ll make libre fried chicken skin and Cuba libres at Dencio’s bar and grill.’ Erning Isip, the AMA Computer College student, timidly approaches the girl. Scratching the back of his head, he says: ‘Miss, please miss, give me autograph?’”

*

From the window you can now see Manila. Rain streaks sideways across the glass. Suddenly the plane dips. Our stomachs squeeze into our throats. Passengers squeal, straighten, clasp armrests tightly. Many double-check their seat belts, more than a few pull out rosaries and begin moving their fingers in time with their lips. Fuck. I hope it’s not a water landing. The pilot announces: “Cabin crew, take your seats.” The plane steadies. Its interior lights dim. Muzak standards are played from the PA system: a tinkling piano version of the theme from
The Godfather
. The only person unfazed is my seatmate, who pulls out my bottle of alcohol disinfectant, takes off his socks, and starts slathering his feet, holding the plastic bottle between his teeth as he gets between his toes with all the fingers of both hands. He slurps to keep his saliva in. So much for my bottle of alcogel. The plane shakes violently again.

I close my eyes. The
Godfather
tune makes me picture silk-socked mobsters skating lithely on mirrored ballroom floors. Liberace at his piano on a dais, watching expectantly for the imminent crash that would break everything into a million little pieces.

I’m pleased by the idea of not having to make small talk with the men Granma always sent to whisk me past customs, to tug my suitcases from the carousel, to drive me home. I’m overjoyed I won’t have to greet my grandfather. I love the new freedom of life without Madison, not having to call to tell her I’ve arrived safely, my reassurances met with inordinate tears that made me feel both wanted and burdened. Independence is bliss. It really is.

I remember, though, when Madison and I decided to get our own place in Brooklyn—my first real taste of independence. It had gotten to a point where my conscience bothered me, hiding her there in my grandparents’ apartment at Trump Tower without Grapes’s permission. I remember when I called him in Manila to let him and Granma know my decision. “Just make sure,” Grapes said, “that you scrub the floor well so we can rent it out quickly.” Part of me was flabbergasted that he was so unconcerned, that he didn’t just tell me to stay. But part of me was relieved that I had pulled it off so easily. Madison and I moved our stuff into our shitty little wonderful new place, and returning the U-Haul truck felt like I was navigating my new yacht to one of those all-inclusive island resorts with vacationing Pilates instructors in G-strings and a pool with a bar in the middle of it.

The next month, however, my grandparents arrived suddenly. After a couple of days of enjoying accompanying them to Broadway shows I’d have dismissed otherwise, and going to dinners with them where Madison and I ate well for a change, Madison was fairly convinced I had exaggerated all my complaints about them. Even I began to doubt myself. I thought, perhaps, my independence had earned their respect. Then they asked to see me alone on their last night in New York; they were leaving for Tel Aviv the next day to see a man about some especially fertile chickens.

Grapes stood by the table in their room at the Holiday Inn. The place made me sad, disgusted even. Ever since I was little, he liked to remind me that his wealth came from knowing how to save. My grandfather’s thick silver hair was uncombed, and he was in his
boxer shorts and undershirt. The shirt was inside out. When he turned around to get something from his suitcase, I saw that the maids had written “Sir” on the shirt tag with a felt pen. The same hand, the same pen, had written “Migs” on all mine. Grapes turned around and sat down at the table. He placed his seven-day pillbox in front of him, opened it to Tuesday, and began taking out tablets and capsules and arranging them on the tabletop. They looked like candies. He hadn’t even glanced at me since I walked in. Granma sat in the corner, looking at her hands. Grapes sighed. It was a brutal, crushing sigh. Like Aeolus, the windwarden from Greek mythology, blowing down all too easily every wall I’d constructed within myself to contain my confidence and pride in the new life I’d just begun. “Why don’t you tell us why you have been lying to us?” He sighed again. “I know you are doing it for that girl.” Sigh. “Wasting your life.” Sigh. “I sent you to an Ivy League school.” Sigh. “What are you doing working for that magazine? You went to Columbia! They should make you editor in chief. Do you want me to go with you to talk to them?” Sigh, sigh, sigh.

“I’ve got a good position, Grapes.”

“Do you? I looked at the masthead. Are you editor? Let’s see here. Brigid Hughes, managing editor. Is your name Brigid Hughes? Ben Ryder Howe, senior editor. Is your name Ben Ryder Howe?”

“Grapes, I’m an editorial assistant. If I work hard enough, I’ll make editor one day.”

“Hmm, let’s look at the other names. Oliver Broudy, senior editor. Is your name Oliver Broudy? George Plimpton, editor. Is your name George Plimpton? Where’s your name, little Miguelito?”

“I’m still new,” I said feebly. “They haven’t updated the masthead.”

“There you go, lying again. Always the same, huh?”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“Your version of the truth. Are you the janitor?”

I looked at Granma. She sat quietly in the corner of the room, looking at her fists. My attempts to make eye contact with her, I still don’t know whether they were for her or me. My own hands started to hurt and I realized I was clenching them so tightly that my nails almost broke the skin.

When I spoke up, I could feel myself shaking. “Grapes,” I said, “you don’t understand.” How childish that sounded. I steeled my voice. “This is about my short story. Right? I knew I shouldn’t have shown you the magazine. It’s always this way. Why do you think the father figure is always you?”

“I’ve never understood why you can’t just write nice stories. Stories your grandmother would like and can show off to her friends.”

“Granma, is that what this is all about?”

Granma spoke up. Her voice was surprisingly angry. “Why can’t you write nice things?” Her voice softened. “Why would anyone read your story and want to visit our country?”

“A writer has to talk about the things that go untalked about.”

Grapes banged his pillbox on the table. “Don’t argue literary aesthetics with your grandmother,” he said. “She’s right. You are always trying to shock. You have all this horrible stuff in your work. Not very Christian things. Not very patriotic. And you say things that are not yours to say.”

“If you have to hide something, then you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. Right, Grapes? If you had some integrity—”

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that! You’re one to talk! What do you know about owning responsibility? We helped you play mommy-daddy with that girl in university. What happened there? But of course we helped you. We’ll always help you. Because we love you. But how do you repay us?”

“Love isn’t based on gratitude. Respect isn’t based on debt. I’m not your constituent.”

“Oh, how dramatic! Listen to yourself. In what book did you read that baloney? We’ve all always known that you were the selfish one. Out of all of you six.”

“None of us kids have stood up to you before. Well here I am. Finally. One of us six. I’m telling you who I really am.” He looked like he was going to say something, but he didn’t. Good. I continued: “You hate that I’m independent. That you can’t control me. That I didn’t go into politics, like you, like my father . . .”

“Those were suggestions,” Grapes said quietly. “I paid for your writing education.”

“You’d tell me, ‘When you’re done
playing
Hemingway, when
are you going to come home and take your role in politics?’ It’s all you ever talked about. But look at where it got you.”

“Yes,” Grapes said. “Look at where it got me!”

I held back. I wanted to hurt him, but not that way. A man’s life is all he has. When you’re old, it’s all you’ll ever have. I said instead: “Look at where it got my dad. A
hero
’s death. Don’t think I don’t know what really happened.”

“I just want you,” Grapes said quietly, “to reach farther than I did. Than your father did.”

Granma piped up. “We love you.”

“If I became a politician, either I’d be corrupted by the compromises I’d be forced to make, or I’d be shot for my ideals. Don’t you see?”

Grapes wasn’t even looking at me anymore. “You always have to have the last word,” he said finally. “Don’t you?”

I thought of what to say, but realized I’d only be having the last word. We stewed in the silence of a stalemate neither of us expected.

In a small voice, Granma told me: “I think you better leave now.”

I couldn’t believe it. I looked at my grandfather for what I knew would be the last time. He looked old. I went out into the hall. Granma followed. She started pulling wadded hundred-dollar bills from her pockets and pushing them into my hands. I kept my fists closed. “No, Granma. I don’t want to take any more of his money.”

“Please,” she said, starting to cry. “Take it. It’s mine. Please. For me.” She stuffed them into the pockets of my jeans. I let her. I hugged her.

“Why don’t you come home with us?” she said. “Just leave her. You don’t have to be responsible for her.”

“What will I do in Manila?”

“I don’t know,” she said weakly. “Enter politics?” Her voice was so quiet. “I’ll help you,” she said. “I’ll take the weight for you.” I hugged her and told her I loved her. Then I walked to the elevator. I pressed the call button purposefully. We stood there. Granma brought out a Kleenex packet and tried to open it. I pressed the button again. Granma hid her face in a tissue. I pressed the button again. Granma began to blow her nose. The elevator finally came. I was grateful that it was empty. I turned to look through the closing
doors, but my grandmother was gone. The elevator went down and down and down until it stopped. The doors opened and I was faced with a group of guys who looked like Midwesterners in town for a wrestling competition. “Hey,” one of them whispered, “that dude’s crying.”

The plane steadies, banks, straightens, and makes its final approach. “I’m sorry for the delay, ladies and gentlemen,” the captain says over the PA. “There was a, uh, problem on the ground.”

My neighbor finally asks me, in English, “You visiting?” I nod. “Me,” he says, smiling, “I come home. For good.” He fishes out a thick wad of U.S. dollars from his belt bag, opens it like a booklet, and flaps it proudly. “My savings. In past times, I work very hard. I remit money for a long time. I will now change everything.” I nod. The money in the middle slips out of the stack and bills shower into our laps. He laughs as we pick them up. I hand over what I collected. The bills smell like sweaty hands and baking bread. I feel unspeakably happy for him. And guilty for having resented him. And sad that I’ve come home with less definitive intentions. “I work so far away,” he says, as if I didn’t understand him. “In past times. Now, for the future of my children, I come home.”