I imagined that Laird was again filing through the facts in his mind, thinking about the history of the Philippines, of the Second World War, of how old people would have been at certain times: trying to put the human factor into his roster of events. “You are lucky you survived,” he said.

“Lucky? I don’t know about that. My mother was, I don’t know, what’s the word, Ting? Idiosyncratic. In her own way, resilient.”

I nodded to both.

“She didn’t want to leave her home. Then the Japanese commandeered the house, and she was on the street. At one point she was sleeping in the church, with me. She would go to Santo Tomas, which is where the Americans were interned, and her father-in-law would pass her food through the bars. The American POWs were hungry, but the Filipinos were starving.” She had a long, inward look. “It is right that we’re talking about her,” said Tita Dom, answering some unvoiced question. “Aren’t we burying her today, after all?”

I felt it might be valid to point out that this was the second time we’d done so. But it was also unnecessary.

“And what about your father?”

“What about him?” asked Tita Dom.

“Why isn’t he being interred along with your mother?”

“Because he is at Fort Santiago. His bones were never recovered. But he is with his son, my brother, so they are not alone.”

Tita Dom had succumbed to a nap with Miggie napping in her lap. Both their mouths had slackened into Os and it sort of looked as if they were singing. The reaches of Edsa were ending in a final act of extreme concrete. You could see Manila in the process of consuming the countryside. Laird flicked his eyes sideways, gauging my attention. I met his glance.

He said, whispering, “I don’t mean to pry, but what happened to your grandfather and your uncle?”

I adjusted myself in my seat to face him. “They stuck it out in Manila and made it to the end of the war, but when the Americans were at the gates of Intramuros, the Japanese rounded up what was left of the Filipino men—including boys of thirteen, that was my uncle—and imprisoned them in a dungeon in Fort Santiago. The Pasig, at that point, was tidal, and the dungeon set in such a way as to make use of the rising water, old Spanish ingenuity. Quite a few people drowned. My grandfather and uncle were in that number.”

Laird’s eyes became alert. “I read the plaque,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “You read the plaque.”