The day I left Bulacan for Manila to live with my parents, Nanay Coro and I flagged down a jeepney that took us back to Baliwag, then a bus that deposited us at a crowded station where my grandmother held my hand tight, in an area called Balintawak. From there, we took a tricycle to the squat, two-story concrete building that housed Mama and Papa’s cramped apartment in Caloocan, on the outskirts of the city.

Neither of my parents were there when I arrived, just a young woman named Charito who Nanay had hired to take care of me. I didn’t see Mama and Papa until they came for dinner that evening, and I noticed that my mother’s arm was around my father’s, which I didn’t remember ever seeing before.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Mama said as she hugged me, though the way she said it made me feel as if she was acting in a soap opera. Papa said hello and nodded in my direction, cool even though he hadn’t seen me in months, so I copied him and tried not to get excited.

I hadn’t been close enough to my parents to see their faces too well, though I was aware that Mama was fat-cheeked and plump with wavy hair she cut short, which was unusual for women, and it looked a little like a dark helmet on her head. Papa’s frame was thin but sturdy, his manner swaggering, which I also found unusual, since the man of our household in Talacsan, Tatay Gaudencio, moved with gentleness and deferred to my grandmother.

A few days later, I went downstairs and was surprised to find Mama awake earlier than me, and even more surprised when she told me she was taking me to Fiesta Carnival. We dressed and then boarded a bus to that giant indoor fun fair with a large sign in front, the letters filled in with different-colored lightbulbs.

“Your Lolo Bert took me here before he went to America,” she said. “The horses were my favorite.”

She motioned to a ride where painted wooden horses went around in a circle, but it didn’t look as much fun as the one next to it, where mothers rode little cars with their kids in a large paved area, and bumped against other cars. But Mama wanted to go to the horses so that was where we ended up, and I tolerated the repetitive music so I could get to the ride I wanted. Once we were at the cars, though, I sat in Mama’s lap and she seemed to enjoy ramming other cars and making the mothers scream. Afterward, she walked me over to the sorbetero with his wagonful of ice cream, where she got herself a chocolate and me a cone of coconut.

“Isn’t life beautiful?” she remarked as we sat on a bench.