When we finally arrived at Café Adriatico, the group was largely assembled. There were close to twenty people there, mostly journalists and academics but also a painter who I recognized but had never met. I hadn’t seen Zackito in a year, but he looked much the same, handsome, well dressed, the kind of person who never looks disheveled no matter the heat. He was standing with José Martin, a reporter incarcerated during Batac’s martial law. José Martin was short and thin and looked like an old man, even though he was only a decade older than me. Although I didn’t know the particulars, he had suffered greatly during his imprisonment but was undeterred from the pursuit of the truth in its wake. He spoke several Filipino languages and had written op-eds for the New York Times. I was walking across the room to join him and Zackito when I registered with some annoyance that Laird was following me. Of course he was. Had I thought I could abandon him at the door?

“Zackito,” I said, kissing his cheek. “So good to see you. And this is Laird, unless you’ve met. He’s a writer who lives in the States.” I knew they hadn’t met but was unsure how else to make the introduction. “And José Martin. Good to see you’re still alive.”

“Call it what you will,” he said.

I retreated by Zackito’s shoulder, letting him make Laird’s introduction to José Martin. José Martin was undeniably a journalist and as Laird had wanted to meet journalists, I felt absolved of further responsibility. And José Martin was interesting, active, real. He had been covering the Muslim insurgents—Abu Sayyaf—in Marawi but had come back for some sort of powwow with his editors as they worked out their next moves. As José Martin related all this, Laird had his large eyes trained on him with such focus that it seemed he was trying to levitate him.

José Martin was amused by the attention. “Do you want to meet some of my colleagues?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Laird. “I would greatly appreciate that.”

Laird and José Martin were now sucked back into the larger group, but I was happy at the fringe with Zackito. Inchoy came to join us. He was drinking a whiskey on the rocks and he rattled the cubes with drama as he watched Laird, a parody of seriousness, shaking hands and looking directly into the face of whoever happened to be attached to the handshake, as if he’d learned this approach from an online seminar.

“What does your cousin do?” Zackito asked quietly.

“He’s more of an in-law,” I explained. “And as for what he does, I’m not sure. Right now he’s trying to figure out the Philippines, possibly with the aim of solving all our problems.”