“I remember your cousin. He was a terrible student and not very nice, but I liked him.”

“I feel the same way, Father.”

“I really should have kicked him out. There were a lot of kids I should have expelled, but something about the bad kids made me want to keep them there. Good kids are good anywhere they go. Bad kids need you. If we truly wanted to do God’s work, we really should have kicked out all the good kids.”

There was another silence.

“Ting, if you’re done eating, maybe we should get going,” said Chet.

“Going where?”

“To the movies.”

I had completely forgotten about the movie date and, now that I remembered, still didn’t think it was anything I had agreed to. I felt settled in for the night and the idea of leaving seemed unfathomable. But as I sat there, full after too much of Tita Dom’s famous-in-the-family chili con carne, I could think of no other way to get Chet out of the house.

Chet, for sentimental reasons, had first wanted to go to Ali Mall in Cubao. We had spent a lot of time there in college, but it was still rush hour, so we ended up at the much newer, much swankier Robinsons, which was only a mile from my aunt’s house. Malls like this had sprung up in the years I had been away, cavernous, gleaming, and chilled. The doors slid open as if guided by some god of commerce and I found myself wondering who shopped here.

The cinema was on the third floor, reached after a series of escalators. The English-language offerings were mostly action or horror pictures, dinosaurs leering over large, red type, houses dripping blood, stern cops, and flamboyant drug lords. The Tagalog films were likely neither exclusively drama nor comedy but a hybrid: a film, for example, in which a character on roller skates careening down a busy street, encountering fruit vendors, plate glass, and chickens, all to comic effect, might suddenly encounter a bus. A jump cut would bring the audience to his funeral. People would laugh. And then cry. This was an actual set of scenes from a film I’d seen in high school. None of my friends had found the juxtaposition of action and tone remarkable in any way and they all had found my incredulousness at the narrative bizarre.

There were sparse other offerings: a costume drama and a not costume drama. Chet was looking at the poster for the not costume drama.

“Nothing romantic,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m getting divorced and I don’t believe in love.”

“If you don’t believe in love, why aren’t you staying married?”

Chet must have intended this to be funny but had, accidentally, stated something wise. There was an awkward pause. I said, “Let’s see The Purge.”