“He felt that there was a role for him. You gave that to him.” She reached across the table and held my hands. Hers were very cold and smooth. “When he spoke,” she said, “one had to listen. At that first rally, he was addressing a crowd, but his words seemed made for me. Somehow, everyone felt that way. We were all riveted.”

I looked at my hands in hers, unsure of how to gain them back. “And what did he say?”

At this she smiled and nodded at me, as if we shared a secret. I was grateful to see Beng walking out from the kitchen carrying a tray with Coke, an ice bucket, and a bowl of atis, of which there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply.

What had Laird and I talked about on that long-ago car ride to Café Adriatico? I remembered I’d accidentally quoted Machiavelli—a hitherto unknown imperilment—and that he had pounced on it. I had felt judged by him, but it was more in his eyes and attitude than anything he’d actually said. I remembered the sight of his back as he entered the offices of the Philippine Telegraph. And I knew that at some point he had told me the name of this woman, my tita Remi’s granddaughter, who he had intended to marry before things had gone so sublimely wrong. But what was it? What was her name?

“I am here,” she said, releasing my hands, “because of your friendship, which meant so much to him.” She reached into her bag and produced a small laptop, which she extended to me. “I know he would want you to have it.”

She kept the laptop extended into the space between us until I finally took it. The laptop, a MacBook Air, was cold in my hands. I didn’t want to hold it. It was as if the thing were soaked in blood. “I don’t know if he really would want me to have it,” I responded.

“His ideas are in there, his legacy. And you are the writer in the family.”

I felt a mercenary tingle.

“You will make his thoughts known to the world. I see your hesitancy. This is why he admired you.”

I exhaled dramatically, I think for my own benefit, and then gingerly lifted the lid of the laptop. It was still charged at fifteen percent. “Do you have the password?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Any ideas?”

She shook her head again. And then I remembered the exchange with Laird from so many weeks ago, as if he were whispering in my ear. I typed the letters carefully, using the capital, and hit Enter. Stunned, I watched the laptop come to life.

“Are you in?”

I nodded.

“What was the password?”

“Do you not know?” I had entered “Cheryl.” “The password is your name.”