The street vendors in bare feet trotting alongside cars, hawking cigarettes and cough drops and sacks of boiled peanuts. The people weaving between them and moving on the sidewalks in great brown rivers. The sheer number of cars and motorcycles and jeepneys. Outside, I inhaled the familiar smell: a thick blend of exhaust and waste, of ocean and sweet fruit and sweat.Įarly the next morning I found a driver, an affable middle-aged man who went by the nickname “Doods,” and we hit the road in his truck, weaving through traffic. And then I had a slave.Īt baggage claim in Manila, I unzipped my suitcase to make sure Lola’s ashes were still there. I had a family, a career, a house in the suburbs-the American dream. Our secret went to the core of who we were and, at least for us kids, who we wanted to be.Īfter my mother died of leukemia, in 1999, Lola came to live with me in a small town north of Seattle. My father had a law degree, my mother was on her way to becoming a doctor, and my siblings and I got good grades and always said “please” and “thank you.” We never talked about Lola. To our American neighbors, we were model immigrants, a poster family. Listen to the audio version of this article: Feature stories, read aloud: download the Audm app for your iPhone.