That first afternoon of preparations, right after the eviction notice posting, had been spent devising a way to cook dinner in the truck cab. He didn’t stop tinkering when he heard the school bus outside, not even when Junior walked in. Henry was sitting cross-legged on the floor, using a pair of pliers to crimp and bend a wire clothes hanger into a contraption that looked like some junkyard crown, sized for a house cat. When the crown was finished, he jogged out to the truck and sat inside it, shivering and waiting for the cigarette burner to warm up, then pop. He ran the tube of hot coils back into the living room, inserted it into the center of the crown, then balanced a can of chili in its wire prongs. It took about fifteen minutes and two more trips to the dashboard, but the maroon goop nevertheless reached a temperature more palatable than lukewarm.

“It’ll be like camping,” he told Junior.

“Whatever,” the seven-year-old said with a teenager’s scorn.

Wasn’t as if Henry’d ever gone camping himself. By now he’d adopted Papa’s low opinion of the pastime, which he shared one night after Mom suggested they all go on a camping trip.

Through a mouthful of rice, Papa scoffed. He swallowed, then called it preposterous. It was absolutely ridiculous to intentionally deprive oneself of civilization’s amenities. Nothing more than a bourgeois simulation of scarcity, turning true struggle into whimsy. And, in that way, it wasn’t just asinine but an insult to the world’s poor, who actually battled hunger and the elements on a daily basis. He shoved more rice onto his tablespoon and said if Mom was so interested in experiencing dearth and poverty firsthand—and he meant real, abject poverty—well, then any money for tents and tin cups would be far better blown on another trip to Manila. She could spend a day or two scavenging in the slums. Wouldn’t that be fun, ah.

Mom’s lips pursed as if she’d taken a sip of coffee, charred and bitter, before they bent into her sad smile. She reached across the dining table and took Henry’s hand.

“You don’t have to come,” she told Papa. “Henry and I don’t need you. It’ll be just the two of us, braving the great outdoors and the world at large.”

“And bears,” Papa grinned. “Just the two of you and grizzlies, ah.”

At ten years old, Henry had been intoxicated by the thought of being alone with Mom, the two of them an intrepid duo taking on whatever creatures and conditions they might meet in the depths of the wilderness. His imagination ran wild, constructing a scene so vivid and frequently retraced that to this day it remained stored as a memory never experienced.