The crescent moon and froth of stars illuminate the yard and crowns the distant tree tops with a silver halo. On my left I see the hammock and the mango tree where my aunt and uncle were napping this afternoon. On my right is the edge of my uncle’s rubber tree farm. I go down the steps toward the privacy of the big leafy foliage when a toad hops out. Its shadow is looming and so greatly exaggerated by moonlight that it scares the bejesus and practically everything else out of me. Beside the porch steps, under the wide open skies, I drop my pants, spread out the sheets, and finally let loose.

I concentrate on the square of yellow light from the open kitchen window. My aunt is laughing hysterically at something my mom has said. The sound is rich and clear and rolls from both her belly and her heart. The back door squeaks open and swings shut. I hear my uncle’s footsteps on the back porch. He lifts the lid of the trashcan. The sound of empty beer cans tumbling over each other cuts through the night. The dog barks. My uncle responds by playfully taunting her. “You greedy old mutt,” he says. “Hear you go. You ugly old thing, what more do you want?”

She begins thumping her tail vigorously on the wooden deck. I can imagine being sniffed out, the dog howling, my uncle rounding the corner, me sitting over my ugly mess. With my pants around my knees, I shuffle like a crab over to the rubber trees. The leaves are silky and smooth which I’m grateful for until I learn that they’re nonabsorbent and only smear things around. My uncle screams, “Bad girl!” Across the yard, I see the pile in plain view beneath moonlight.

In my urgency, I had laid out the entire newspaper consisting of roughly twenty sheets. I don’t know why I just didn’t go on the ground. I blame it on my Americanness, my silly attempt at being sanitized despite the obvious. The top ten sheets are soaked through. But my foolish heart races with the hope that perhaps the bottom sheets are salvageable. Maybe Baby Boy’s article was spared. Maybe I can return the paper to the coffee table with nobody even noticing.

I scoop up the paper on both sides and hold it like a taco. It is by far the most horrific and humiliating event of my life. Finally, I gather the paper on all four sides and then scrunch up the top like when I help my mom make wontons. This at least encloses it into a package. I lift up the bundle to put it inside a plastic bag. The sight before me is unsightly and I place it on the ground with a thud.