Papa was sitting at the dining table, two neat piles before him. One was a stack of progressively shrinking papers—bills, envelopes, coupons, receipts—held down by his checkbook. The other was a cluster of tough, mustard crescents of dead skin. He drew the razor along the corns on his palm, a callus rind curling tighter and tighter till it fell to the tabletop. He swept it into the pile with the back of his hand. While this act of grooming was so quintessentially Papa, this man was not. Hardly recognizable. The severity of such exhaustion couldn’t solely be the result of staying up past his bedtime.

“I asked,” he said, “if you’ve got something for me, ah.”

“What do you mean?”

Papa opened his right hand, displaying the shallow channels the razor had carved into a paler, fresher layer of calluses. “You got your first paycheck today, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “So?”

Papa curled a finger, beckoned. “You know the tradition.”

Yes, Henry did, but fuck that. “This isn’t the Philippines.”

“What’s your last name?”

Coolly, he reminded Papa.

“Then act like one, goddamnit.” Papa jerked his hand up but caught himself before hammering it down. The fist fanned open, shooed off an invisible fly.

“Sixteen years,” Papa started. “Every hour of every day for the last sixteen years, I’ve given to you. Every meal you’ve ever eaten, every night you’ve slept in safety. I gave you my name. Whether you’re in Manila or on the moon, you’ll carry my name. Our family’s name.

“If you’re willing to spit on that, on a tradition of dignity, respect, and gratitude just to hold on to a couple of dollars, then fine. Keep it. But in that case, I’ll be taking back everything else. Remember, now that you’re working, you’ve got to earn what’s yours.”

Henry was quaking. He was flame, he was bile, but Papa wasn’t wrong. If this—the capacity to earn his own money—was what made him independent, a man, then he would have to find a way to keep these indignant, baby-boy tears now welling in his eyes from falling. The best he could come up with was to slap the cash onto the tabletop. He even dug out the two quarters, the nickel, and smacked them down, too. A pretty little cherry on top.

Papa didn’t thank him. Hardly looked at him. Just started counting.

“This is light. I thought you were making a dollar more than minimum wage? After taxes, by my math,” Papa tilted his calculator, “there should be two hundred thirty—”

“I cashed it. Fuckers kept ten percent,” Henry snapped. “Want that, too? With interest? I’ll have it for you in two weeks.”

“I hope you learned something.” As Papa pressed himself to his feet, his eyes turned to the living room, the daybed.