The bedroom was also fully furnished and painted in a soft rose. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to look at, so I looked at the bed, which was some fancy antique no doubt, and the coverlet, likely hand embroidered at great loss of sight. One wall of the room was a built-in closet with mirrored doors and I had the unsettling experience of watching myself wander around, which made me feel more like an observer than an actor. I opened one closet door, and it was empty. I opened another closet door and was surprised to see it full of Chet’s clothes. I closed it and then reopened it, as if expecting a different result. No, there were Chet’s clothes, and not just fancy barongs and seldom-worn suits but a solid yard of the plain white sport shirts that he wore every day. I pulled open a drawer and was confronted with Chet’s underwear. Would the next drawer have Chet’s socks? It did. On the bedside table there was a photograph of Chet’s children, somehow taken without C. G. in it.

I wandered back into the living room as Chet was ending his call. The maid was setting lunch, two places at the far end of the table.

“Well?” he said.

“You moved out?”

“I moved in.”

“You’re crazy.”

Chet shrugged. “We can get married.”

“No we can’t.”

“I’m taking care of it.”

“What are you taking care of?”

“The annulment.”

“You’re having your marriage annulled?” The maid passed by with a plate of fried fish and set it carefully on the table. “You can’t do that to C. G.”

“I’m doing it.”

“On what grounds?”

“I’m crazy. I was crazy when we got married. That’s all you need for the annulment.”

“But you’re not crazy.”

“You just said I was.” He was looking at my face intently, nodding almost imperceptibly. I watched, unable to move, as Chet’s face relaxed into a smile.

“What?” I asked.

“We should eat,” he said.

I served myself some fish, but my appetite had deserted me. “I am going back to New York,” I said.

Chet shrugged. He didn’t believe me, and why would he? I was still there, eating his food, making the rounds with my family, as Gumboc’s drug killings mounted and offshore a typhoon was threatening. I was still taking notes for a book that might never get written. I was still there. “Why would you go back?” He looked at his empty plate.

I was under assault but also unsure of what I was working so hard to defend. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know,” said Chet. “Sometimes I wish I’d never met you.” He raised an eyebrow and smiled. “You, Ting, are a bad investment.”

XIV

XIV