Short History of Cars My Father Used to Own

The last car my father bought was the last car he ever owned, 
we ever owned—a burgundy Mitsubishi Galant, bought 
at great cost and enterprise from an auto supplier in Manila, 
delivered at equally great enterprise to our house because
my father did not drive. It sat in a makeshift garage that consisted 
of beams erected on the right side of the house, over which
a corrugated iron roof was erected, until he found a driver 
willing to work part-time, as needed. The first car 
I remember him buying was a used car—dirty white, 
sharpfinned Impala, the kind with the tiny triangular windows 
on the side of each front window you could crank open and close 
with a small winding knob. The second car my father owned 
was a green Mercedes Benz, a hand-me-down from one 
of his rich Ilocano politician cousins. There were 
pictures of me entering that car with its cracked 
leather upholstery, holding up the skirt of my wedding 
dress in one hand and clutching a spray of white cattleyas 
in the other. What each cost, I don't exactly know—the cars, 
my father's standing in the eyes of colleagues, friends, 
clients. The orchids were free, a gift from a neighbor; 
that first marriage, fifteen difficult years of always 
being told you could only resign yourself to it, couldn't 
trade it in, resell, or simply leave in the yard 
to rust and choke among the bindweed.