Excerpt from The Son of Good Fortune by Lysley Tenorio, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I'm sorry," he says. "Too much, too soon? "

She shakes her head. "Not too soon, mahal. I think, maybe, that I am falling in love, too."

"With ... me? "

She laughs. "Yes, with you. Tanga!"

"Tanga?"

"It means 'stupid.' "

He lets out a breath, slaps his chest twice. "My heart. It's racing."

" 'Heart.' In Tagalog, puso."

"Puso." He writes the word down. "That means 'heart.' Got it."

"Soon, you'll speak Tagalog. Then you can visit me in the Philippines, di ba? "

"Or you visit me first. Maybe you can be my date to the reunion? " He sets the scene: He enters his high school gym to the tune of his old prom song, "We've Only Just Begun" by the Carpenters, and though he hasn't aged as well as his classmates, there's no question that he has the sexiest, most gorgeous woman in the room on his arm. The other women are jealous of her, the men envious of him, and the bullies from his freshman year just stand to the side, giving him the thumbs-up. "And the whole night," he says, "you and I just dance."

He leans into his webcam. His whole head seems to inflate on Maxima's screen. "When can we meet? "

"Philippines to America," she sighs, "not so easy trip." The lines in Manila for passports and visas take hours, she says, sometimes days (that's just to apply), and never mind the near-zero chances of government approval. Their best hope for being together is to pray, to keep faith in God, and to wait. "And when I come to North Dakota," she says, "will you show me the snow? "

"Count on it."

"Okay. But one condition only: I don't shovel."

He laughs, which makes her laugh, harder and harder until she's hunched over, laughter becoming gasps for air. "Mahal," he says, "you okay?" She shakes her head, takes a breath and says it's nothing, then keels over again.

"It's definitely not nothing," he says. "What's wrong? "

She looks straight at the camera. "I'm hurt."

"Hurt? Hurt where? "

She clears her throat, takes a breath. "Don't worry, Henry. It's nothing, okay?"

"Stop saying that. Just tell me."

She looks at him for a moment, as though wondering if he can be trusted with something as private as pain. "If that's what you want, mahal"—she stands up—"then okay." She lifts her shirt slowly, adjusting the camera to make sure he sees, then turns in a slow circle to reveal a wound, a crusty gash that spans from the top of her hip to the middle of her abdomen. She explains: It happened in the typhoon two months before. A snap of bamboo, sharp as a spear, sliced across her body in the high-velocity winds. "I lost so much blood," she says. "But I'm thinking, okay lang, it's just a cut, bahala na. Pero now, I have an infection." Her own grandmother, she tells him, died from an infected cut, but God's good grace will keep her alive, she's sure of it.

She lowers her shirt and sits. "But every day it hurts."

"What can I do? How can I help?" He slumps in his chair. "I hate this. I hate being so far from you." Before she can speak, he says that maybe the day to meet should come sooner than later; what if this is God and the universe telling them that he should be the one to fly to her and, depending on the current round-trip airfare from Grand Forks to Manila, now is the time to come together? But Maxima says no and promises him that there's a better day ahead for them to meet, one when she is healthy and strong. For now, all she needs are his love, faith, and prayers. Nothing else.

"But there is one thing," she says.

"Tell me."

"Medicine. Ointments and creams with all the antibiotics. The best hospital in Manila has them. Pero"—she bites her lip, fighting tears—" walang pera."

"Walang pera?"

"No money." She shakes her head. "There's never money."

Henry puts his glasses back on. "Well, how much do you need? "

From The Son of Good Fortune by Lysley Tenorio. Copyright 2020 Lysley Tenorio. Excerpted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.