We gathered on the terrace as lunch was being served. I poured myself a glass of kalamansi juice from a sweating jug. Jim’s kids were all there with their children, and Jim’s sister, Cousin Carmi, with her kids and their kids. Tita Dom’s children would be showing up sometime soon with their kids, and so on. And after we had gained critical mass and eaten, we would all go to the chapel to watch my grandmother’s bones be slid into the wall with the others, who had all been removed from their first final resting place to be put to rest again.

I had finished my kalamansi juice and was about to ask a servant to find me a beer when a group of maids rushed out of the kitchen with net covers and began hurriedly placing them over the food. Tita Rosa’s face crumpled in a frown. “Why?” she asked. I heard the sound of chopper blades as my cousin Jim’s helicopter swung to the front of the house. Bits of grass and dust began to churn in the air. She shouted, “Why have a helipad if you’re going to land your helicopter right beside the house?”

I shrugged and shouted back: “You know Jim isn’t a big fan of walking.”

“But he could get someone to drive him from the helipad.” This was true, even though the helipad was only a hundred meters away.

The helicopter touched down and my cousin Jim and his wife, Cha Cha, disembarked, along with their eldest granddaughter. No sooner had they exited than the helicopter immediately ascended again, heading off to the left, where it disappeared back over the roof of the house. Jim came straight to me and we kissed, his cheek smooth and cool and smelling of some expensive thing. He was as light skinned as I and had the same watery green eyes, the hallmark of mestizos. “How are books?” he said.

“Books are good,” I responded.

“I heard you were thin.”

“Was I fat before?”

“No, but now you’re really thin.”

Satisfied with our exchange, he began making the rounds of his grandchildren. Cha Cha was now pinching my elbow hard. “Ting, so good you’re here. We always see you and that’s good.”

“Why do I leave?” I asked.

“Yeah, we all wonder. Don’t go this time. I hear you have some sort of scandal with your husband, but we’re family and we don’t care.”

“Thanks,” I said. The gratitude sounded ironic and had originally been delivered as such, but was now, on reflection, sincere. My family was deeply loyal to me, as I was to them, a love that never faltered no matter what you did or how deserving you were of approbation, so long as your victims remained outside the clan.