7.1 When the epiphany came as it tends to near the end of one's life, Bienvenido Senior saw his dead mother in a wreath of light at the foot of his bed and, fearing for his life, followed her out of his house in Daly City, along the silent avenues, and into a grocery market, losing her somewhere among the fruits and vegetables. Standing there barefoot and stupidly in his pajamas at three in the morning, he wept into the broccoli and the cantaloupe, the memory of her toil spreading like those fields in a tarmac of blinding light.

7.2 Ben had begun bringing his mother's meals to his father, trying to arrive before his father could hit the evening bottle, and holding forth with a planned question. But the next night, his father said: I saw your grandmother last night. You don't have to worry about me. I know what I have to do now.

7.3 Bienvenido Senior went to church, made his confession, tossed his whiskey habit, and organized a plan to build a new church in his old village.

7.4 Years later, Ben Junior would travel to the Philippines to visit his father, buried next to the church he had struggled to build with his bare hands during those years of martial law. Ben lit a candle in the church and sat to contemplate the rebellious zeal of their separate passions.