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Chapters (23)
  1. Cover
  2. AMERICAN SON
  3. AMERICAN SON
  4. Dedication
  5. Copyright
  6. Contents
  7. AMERICAN SON
  8. PART ONE
  9. Balikbayan
  10. Chapter One
  11. Chapter Two
  12. PART TWO
  13. AMERICAN SON
  14. Chapter One
  15. Chapter Two
  16. Chapter Three
  17. PART THREE
  18. A Dirty Penance
  19. Chapter One
  20. Chapter Two
  21. Chapter Three
  22. Chapter Four
  23. Acknowledgements

She frowned. Anyway, mostly I’m tired from dealing with all these relatives and their dramas and gossips. This country’s crazy.

Don’t you like seeing them? You were laughing a lot over lunch.

They can be funny, that’s true, she said, and a smile came to her face. But I would hate to live here again. Everything’s about appearances. They’re all afraid of being poor, so they act like they’re rich, and talk tsismis about each other behind their backs.

We’re poor back home, he said. Here we’d be rich.

She shook her head. No, Tomas. You should appreciate America. I went there so you could be an American.

Thanks a lot, he said.

That was several years ago. Last August an aunt invited us to visit her farm in Palawan, said she would pay the plane ticket. Tomas and I wanted to go. We remembered the dark river caves filled with blind chirping swallows, and their miles of ceilings lined with sleeping red-eyed bats. The maids who brought you Cokes and drivers who waited for you outside of malls. But our mother shook her head to Tita Adorie even though she was on the telephone.

No, she insisted.

I could tell the aunt was persisting, asking why, and though our mother could not give her a good explanation, I remembered our last trip there and how melancholy she had seemed.

VII

The client comes out the side buttoning his shirtsleeve at his wrist and smoothing his hair flat. In the shade of the avocado tree you cannot tell his hair is thinning. A few more sessions, and he will be able to take his dog home. He appears to be thinking and not paying attention and he does not see me sitting on the edge of the porch until he is almost upon me. Startled, he halts suddenly and there is a moment of fear in his eyes and then he recognizes that it is only me and they calm again.

Hey, he says.

I nod.

Earlier he seemed afraid of me, around the dogs and Tomas, but now that his eyes are calm I have to focus on his chin so it will look like I am holding eye contact. He appears to be waiting for me to say something, but I cannot think of anything, and he continues on and leaves.

Chapter Two

I