Page 21 of Bad Words

Oh, man. That must be so frustrating—I know you just had it in the shop. Does this help? I don’t want you to worry.

Parker Navarro sent $500 with Apple Pay

Mom

9:26 PM

Oh Pijay. You’re too generous to your mom I don’t know what I did to deserve you

Parker

9:27 PM

Haha, I can think of an entire childhood’s worth of things you did. Love you, Mom.

Mom

9:27 PM

I’m sorry to be such an inconvenience

Parker

9:28 PM

You’re not an inconvenience at all. This is what kids want to be able to do for their parents. Living the dream, haha

Mom

9:29 PM

Can we call tomorrow?? Love you so much

Parker

9:30 PM

Of course, any time. Talk soon.

As the subway rattled eastward toward Brooklyn, I swiped through photos of my family. My mother in florals with Christi and Elena at a seaside restaurant on her birthday. My father laughing at his retirement party, two thumbs up over a steaming pot of sinigang.

My dad, a former X-ray technician, hadn’t retired until last year at age seventy-two, and my mom was still working the front desk at the same hotel that had hired her after my dad had moved out. For how hard and how long my parents had worked, they should have had more to show for it, but they’d had five of us to raise in the Bay Area, where the cost of living had gone from high to sadistic, and their bitter divorce hadn’t exactly contributed to our financial stability.

My mom, at least, I could trust to be somewhat open about her problems. The car was a recurring issue. With my dad, I had to ferret around for information through Christi and Justin—the oldest of us—to figure out if he could foot the copays for his blood pressure medication, his ankle therapy, the appointments for his deteriorating vision.

I switched texts to my thread with my father.

Dad

8:22 PM

So f.y.i. your mom is trying to guilt-trip about the holidays

Dad

8:23 PM

I told everyone in Manila you would all be here on the 28th like last year. Somehow this is an enormous problem for her