Afterwards, Tomas would not do any chores around the house and barely talked to her for a week. He sat in his room watching TV and refused to do any homework, which is how he knew he could most hurt her. Two years later, our father returned from his station in Germany and Mom took him back in. On his third night home he got drunk and started smashing my model rockets and I tried to tell him to stop and he struck me. Mom tried to make him stop and it looked as if he would hit her too, but then Tomas came out of his room. He was larger than our father now. Dad stood over her making fun of Filipinos and her family and looked as if he was about to hit her, and my brother dragged him outside and tossed him onto the acorn-covered lawn. Our father picked himself up and stumbled towards his car, then leaned against the hood. He wiped his forehead and then looked up at my brother—Mom and I saw this from the front steps—and told him he only married her because he wanted someone meek and obedient, but had been fooled because she came with a nagging extended family. He said he never intended to come back to us permanently anyway and only wanted to sleep with her, and now he had gotten what he wanted and would leave and did not care if we wanted him back or not. I doubt he really meant the worst of what he said—there was, I remember, hurt in his voice—but Tomas came up to him and shoved a fist into his side and then slammed his head into the window. After our mother drove him to the emergency room, we never saw him again.

IV