“Tita Rosa, I know you like to help people, but this Laird isn’t even a relative.” My aunt had a tendency to involve herself in things and, having done so, to involve anyone else who happened to be in the vicinity. “He’s marrying Tita Remi’s granddaughter. Do you even know her name? When was the last time you saw Remi?” Remi was most often in California, but she and my aunt would see each other on Remi’s sporadic visits home.

“I told Remi you would help him out.”

“You did? How does she even know I’m here?”

“Remi called and I told her.” My aunt furrowed her brow. “Why are you so hotheaded? Am I supposed to be hiding you? Because you didn’t say to keep it a secret.”

This was true.

“So Remi’s visiting and she called me, and I said, ‘Ting is here too.’ And she said, ‘Which one is Ting?’ And I said, ‘The one who married the banker and lives in New York and teaches at Columbia.’ And that you were the writer in the family. And Laird knew who you were and wanted to meet you.”

“He’s probably just bored and trying to escape his in-laws.”

“Maybe he is.”

And Remi likely wanted to get him out of the house, wearied of entertaining and feeding him.

“He’s apparently very interested in political things. He read your article in Voice.”

“That’s Vice.” I knew who Laird was, a recently awakened Fil-Am, the type I encountered at various literary functions. They liked microphones and Spam. America’s streets and classrooms had instilled in many a sense of inferiority and in some a seething resentment at being brown in a white world. The Fil-Ams suffered from the shame of otherness, while Filipinos born and educated in the Philippines struggled with disdain for gauche American culture. In the States, we were all seen as being of the same tribe, but it was, at times, a flawed taxonomy.

The dog had smelled the food and was nosing my leg. I cut the end off of one of the longanisas and fed it to him.

“I can’t have a dog in the house,” said Tita Rosa. “He’ll urinate everywhere.”

“He’s cute.”

“That’s how I know it’s not your tito Iñigo.”

There was a clamor at the front door and it swung open as if of its own accord. Tita Dom stepped into the foyer, followed by the driver, Mannie, who was carrying two heavy shopping bags.

“Dom!” said Tita Rosa. “Look who’s here.”

“My God,” she said. “Ting! Why didn’t you say that you were coming?”

“I wasn’t really sure until I was on the plane.” I got up and went to hug her.

Tita Dom gave me an appraising look, somehow both critical and impressed. “You’re so thin.”

“Am I supposed to be fat?”

“Is it one or the other?”