manila, luzon, philippines
When it rains on a summer night and a cool breeze smelling of earth drifts through the open window, there is another place Matilde remembers. For thirteen years the Philippines were home for her little family, she bore her first child there, and then six more, all boys. she also truly grieved for the first time there, and when they finally boarded the ship for California, they left many kind friends behind and her heart split open again like a broken coconut. The palms, a hundred different kinds of palms, sway lazily in her dreams, and she remembers them everywhere, lined up along the wide veranda, hanging from pots under the eaves, fanning and cooling the garden and the rooftop. She remembers the wispy ferns, the birdbaths and fountains, where she would walk and take her siesta, my dream time, she told the boys, to get away for a few moments and revel in the floral wonderland of the philippines. such flowers! orchids, the boldest and brightest colors she'd ever seen, violet, fusc