When I entered the house, Beng was there to take the loot from Mannie. She was peeking into the bags, curious to know what I had been up to.

I opened a couple of small, iridescent bags to show the long, looping strands of pearls. I had bought three for about twenty dollars apiece. I intended to wear them all at once, as if I were Anna Karenina. I had also purchased a number of small studs, ridiculously cheap, in different colors—yellow, green, pink, white, and black. I picked out a pair of pink studs. “Ito ang kulay mo,” I said and folded them into Beng’s hand.

“Ting!” came Tita Rosa’s voice. She was calling from her desk.

I left my bags by the door and stepped into the library. “Tita?” I said, questioning.

Tita Rosa was looking very formidable, impressive as she was dwarfed by the size of her desk. “When you were a baby, you were crawling under the dining table, so cute, and you kissed my leg. I remember that, although I’m sure you don’t.”

“I don’t remember it, but you retell it often, as did my mother.” My mother had used this story to remind me that my love for Tita Rosa was illogical and also potentially disloyal.

“And once, when you were crawling around, at a similar age, you stuck your finger into the socket and nearly electrocuted yourself. The lights all dimmed.”

This was another apocryphal tale and I had heard it many times, having luckily survived to do so. I had always wondered how I’d managed to fit my finger into the socket and had spent much of my childhood looking at sockets and then looking at my finger. “Yes.”

In response to this, Tita Rosa raised the DHL package that had been gathering dust on top of the bureau in my room for the last week. The envelope had been opened and I knew she had read it.

“This is unacceptable,” she said. “You must fight it.”

At this point my American self was weakly signaling me that my privacy had been violated, while my Filipina self was reminding me that privacy was not a value understood or privileged in the current circumstance.

“Why?”

“You are relinquishing all your rights to his retirement? Your husband is a wealthy man. Why would you do this?”

I inhaled, exhaled, and sighed. “He doesn’t want to end the marriage.”

“So what does that have to do with anything? So you’re not a good wife now, weren’t you a good wife for twenty years? I cannot let you sign this. You’re not signing this.”

Although this was annoying, I felt strangely comforted.

“You kissed my leg and you stuck your finger in the socket.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You love me and you do stupid things, but even your tita Dom thinks it would be stupid if you agree to this.”