He was right. I was being stupid. Dasmariñas was not far from Magallanes and at this point, what was the difference? Cherry was one of those Ilocanos who justified the “industrious” stereotype. I didn’t want to be alone in Bibo’s apartment with all her things, and we had to get it done today. The lease was up on the apartment on Monday, and Inchoy had left the task of packing up her belongings to the last minute and then proven incapable of taking part. Originally, we had planned to settle Bibo’s apartment together, but that just seemed a recipe for disaster. Inchoy would be shuttling along just fine and then—as if a fog were descending—he would freeze, seized by grief. Tears would follow. But he was still keeping up with his teaching. The work was saving him from complete disintegration.

Miggie’s mother, Leonora, was already at the party, waiting—in response to my text—as we made our way up the circular drive.

“Oh, sige, Miggie, there’s your mom. Have fun.” She leaned over presenting her cheek, her mouth pursed in the polite kissing gesture perfected by the family’s children. “Leonora,” I said, shouting in the second before Mannie slid the door shut. “Let’s get together soon.”

Chet’s house in Dasmariñas looked much like the house where I had just left Miggie. One entered through the towering gates and angled up the drive. Masses of tended greenery seemed to revel in nature and deny its riot simultaneously. Like a Mayan temple, the colossal house emerged from behind the palms, an edifice of adobe brick. It was a palace humming with Freon and money. You could feel the coldness of the polished marble floors just by looking at it, an exponential chill mirrored in the reflecting surfaces of windows. There were two cars parked in the drive, an Audi and a Mercedes, and the latter of these was being buffed to excess by a uniformed driver making careful circles on its surface with a damp chamois. I texted Chet to text Cherry that I’d arrived and was checking my phone when the car door slid open and, to my surprise, C. G. entered and sat next to me.

C. G. sat in an aggressive cloud of what I identified as Prada Candy. She inhaled, seemingly bored, and angled her gorgeous head in my direction. She was a Chinese mestiza, all cheekbones and lozenge eyes, and had the kind of bone structure that would have inspired Brâncuși.

“Hello, Ting,” she said.

I put my phone down on the seat with care. “Hello, C. G.,” I responded.

“We need to have a chat,” she said. She was speaking in her American-accented English, something she had picked up when she’d attended Middlebury.

“Okay,” I said.