He made sure everyone’s time was respected, everything was given, received, organized, and kept. His appointments always started and ended on time and not one thing in his office was out of place. He never ate lunch, never appeared stressed, and he was extremely punctual and neat. My boss was an eccentric person, to say the least. My boss said everything came and went like that, all while I took calls, scheduled appointments, and made copies. New worries became old ones and, eventually, nothing to worry about at all. The nightmares about my brother’s hands eventually went away. My parents grieved my brother for a year, but they never blamed me for not going. So, the following week, I stayed in the office and the funeral went on without me. “Exactly,” he said to the sound of a plate dropping on a muffled surface. “Tell them I said you couldn’t.” Something on his end bubbled and hissed. “You’re probably right,” I said, but then insisted, not wanting to disappoint my parents. He was like my kuya, so naturally I told him everything. We immediately took a liking to each other, and, as long as I did what he said, even if I didn’t understand it, he promised to take care of me. My boss was just three years older than me but already he had his own practice. I know you.”Īt the time, I was still in college and working as the secretary for a small family law office that specialized in cases related to Filipinos and divorce. “If you go, you’re just going to regret it. I could hear something sizzle on his side. Be grateful it’s just the hands you think about,” he said through the phone. “Going over there and doing something like that will just make your dreams worse. When I told my boss about the hands and asked for a few days off to attend my brother’s funeral, he sighed and suggested I didn’t. The thought of them was clearer to me than my brother and his family’s faces. His death didn’t really bother me as much as the idea of the wrappers of the cones being singed to his hands. He was family and my kuya, but he wasn’t someone I would talk to other than the occasional “happy birthday” or Liked post on Facebook. Needless to say, I didn’t grow up with him. He was part of my parents’ old life and, when they left, he stayed behind. He was ten years older and had his own life there, while my parents and I had our own here in America. Based on the coroner report, he was holding two ice cream cones when he died. His wife and two girls were found in a furniture store my brother, the food court. It was Christmas Eve, a year after Duterte was elected, when my brother and his family were killed in a shopping mall fire in Davao City, Philippines.