His father released him, turned to Colin, and did what he always did when he was uncertain of the protocol: he took Colin’s hand between both of his own and held it there, his grip firm and warm, his eyes steady on Colin’s face.
“Welcome,” he said. “Welcome. Come inside, it’s too hot out here. We’ve got the air conditioning going full blast. Mutya’s been cooking all afternoon. Well, the cook’s been cooking and Mutya’s been supervising, which is the same thing, according to her.”
Colin smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
“Rudy, please.” He released Colin’s hand with a final pat and turned back towards the door, already talking about the traffic and whether Deng had taken the shortcut through Ayala Avenue.
Diwa’s mother was in the entrance hall.
Maria Lucia de la Vega stood beside the console table with her reading glasses pushed up into her hair, a slim woman in a white blouse and dark trousers whose stillness held a two-hundred-seat lecture hall at full attention. Her eyes tracked Diwa across the threshold.
“Diwa.” She stepped forward, took his face in both hands, and pressed her lips to his cheek. Then her eyes moved to Colin, and she smiled and inclined her head. “You must be Colin. Come in.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Theveranda had ceiling fans. Colin stood under one with a glass of water sweating in his hand and let the blades push the warm air across his face. It wasn’t cool, but after two hours in a dining room with eight people and five conversations running at once in two languages, the quiet was worth braving the humidity for.
Behind him, through the open doors, the family was still at the table. Rudolpho’s laugh carried through the house at a frequency that rattled the glassware, and underneath it, Mutya’s voice rose and fell in rapid Tagalog punctuated by her husband Jun’s dry interjections. Diwa was in there somewhere, talking too fast, the way he always did when he had a captive audience in front of him.
Colin had eaten well. The cook, a tiny woman called Manang Celia who had taken one look at Colin’s plate and begun loading it with a second portion before he’d cleared the first, had produced a spread that made the crispy pata at Ledbury Road look like a warm-up act. There had been sinigang so sour itmade his eyes water, a whole lapu-lapu steamed with ginger and tomatoes, and a dish of pork belly in something dark and sweet that Lakan had ladled onto Colin’s rice with a generous hand while explaining, at length, that the recipe had been in the family for four generations.
He’d eaten all of it, because it was extraordinary, and because every time his plate showed a bare patch, someone filled it.
The garden below the veranda was lit by low lamps set into the pathway. Frangipani trees threw heavy shadows across the lawn, and something Colin couldn’t see was making a high, rhythmic sound in the hedgerow. An insect of some sort, maybe.
Colin heard her approach before he saw her, clocking the soft scuff of leather soles on tile, and the clink of a cup against a saucer. Maria Lucia came through the doors with a small coffee cup in her hand and stopped when she found the veranda occupied.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were out here.”
“I’m just getting some air.” Colin lifted his glass to her. “That was a hell of a meal, and I needed to get on my feet.”
She smiled and settled into one of the rattan chairs near the railing, then rested her coffee cup onto the side table. “Diwa tells me you taught him to change a light bulb and have been taking the lead on the home improvements at Ledbury Road.”
“I have been.”
“That must take some patience.”
Colin smiled. “He’s getting there. I can leave him alone with the drill now and not come back to him bleeding.”
She laughed and her eyes creased at the corners the same way Diwa’s did. “You’ve done well. I tried to teach him how to cook rice when he was twelve, and he was completely useless. This was using arice cooker, Colin!”
“He’s not bad now,” Colin said. “He does a decent garlic rice.”
She took a sip of her coffee and set it down. “When he was growing up, the most complicated thing he could manage was a bowl of cereal, and even that was touch and go. He spilled a lot of milk.”
“He’s a good man,” Colin said simply, because it seemed to him as though Maria Lucia needed to hear it.
Maria Lucia looked at him directly. “He is,” she agreed. “He makes poor decisions sometimes. Some very impactful ones. But yes, he’s a good man.”
“He’s a catch. But don’t let him know I said that to you.”
She laughed. “Your sons. Diwa’s told us about them. Stephen’s a barrister?”
“Junior corporate. He’s doing well.” Colin turned the glass in his hand. “His twin, Lysander, he’s finding his path.”
“Twins! That must have been hectic for you.”
“It was. But they turned out all right.”
