It was only when Dek used the word “ninang” that I remembered Nanay Coro was his godmother, which reminded me of the revered role she once played in Talacsan, a legacy that my father had obliterated, having sold nearly all of my grandmother’s property to fund his wayward life. Though maybe the loss was just as well since I, his only surviving legitimate child in the eyes of Philippine law, would not have been in a position to carry that legacy on. Maybe my brother Tony could have taken over, but he had died nearly a decade before. I wondered if I would have given him my share and position as male head of the family—Philippine law did not recognize transgender women—or, flush with the prospect of wealth, I would have become a different version of my father.

“Hershey Rodriguez died of a heart attack,” Dek said out of the blue. “It’s too bad she won’t make it to our twenty-fifth reunion.”

He told me about the last time our class reunited, at a restaurant in Baliwag the previous summer. Dek regaled me with a long list of updates about various friends like Richard Paguia and Mirabella Desiderio, the top students in our class who had become doctors. Many of the old gang like Ramil Cruz and Don Flores had gone to work abroad.

“Samuel Dominguez stayed here though,” Dek said. “He’s a manager for a corporation in Manila.”

I expected to hear Samuel’s name and was glad I didn’t have to ask. I was also proud of myself that I didn’t follow up with more questions, allowed what existed between me and Samuel to lie firmly in the past.

“We talked about you at reunion,” he admitted. “It’s amazing you’ve become a woman. We didn’t even know you were gay.”

I was tempted to explain that gay and transgender were distinct identities in America but decided to set it aside, knowing they overlapped in our country.

“You really had no idea?”

“No,” he said as he shook his head. “We were really surprised.”

I felt disappointed over how I hid so well that even my most intimate friends didn’t know me. I was still sure Samuel did though, regardless of what he said.

Dek was there for my grandmother’s funeral mass two days later. Papa refused to represent our family like he was supposed to, so I was called upon to speak without any notice, before the hundred or so neighbors, friends, and extended family members who sat in our vast municipal church that morning.