I texted Chet, first on his main phone line and then, when he didn’t get back to me, on the private number, which was used only by me and C. G.

Ask your people about Laird.

I already did.

Ask again.

A policeman was standing in the middle of the traffic, blowing his whistle and waving. I remembered my tita Dom telling me that when the pope had visited the year before, the police were out in full force and had been instructed to wear diapers because they were not allowed to leave their posts for any reason. She had told me how you could see their pants were a bit too snug and how they had all looked humiliated, as if they knew that everyone knew, because everyone did.

The phone buzzed. It was another text from Chet. He was, of course, running late.

When we reached our destination, the driver of the Grab asked me if I was sure this was where I had to be. We were bordering a slum. A skinny cat with a kinked tail was slinking around a pile of trash. In my black silk dress and heavy pearls, I imagined I looked photoshopped in. I knew that I would be a spectacle attired like this but also that Bibo would have wanted me to dress up, to show respect for her and her family.

The wake was set up in a small room, down three crumbling concrete steps flanked on each side by caged roosters. Mariah Carey, Bibo’s favorite singer, was playing. Relatives were crowded on plastic chairs. The room opened into a small garden where a table was set with food. Two women stood to serve, waving laconically to keep the flies off the vats of adobo and kare kare. A square table had been set inside and at this table were cards and money and men gambling with focus. They were playing pusoy. The family would take a portion of the proceeds to pay for the funeral, which was one way the poor raised money to bury their dead. At the back of the room was the coffin, white and open, by which Inchoy sat, collapsed, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes puffed and unfocused. He was not facing the coffin but rather seated beside it, as if Bibo were napping or ill in bed and Inchoy keeping watch. Beside him was a woman with gray hair fanned around her shoulders, her lips pursed. This must have been Bibo’s mother. A young girl sat by the woman’s feet fanning herself with a woven paypay, occasionally fanning Bibo’s mother in a futile effort to take the weight from the humid air.