Excerpt from Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Thoughtful, quiet Lorenzo. Nineteen to Francisco's sixteen. Medium brown skin, wide nose, and a smile as smooth as a shoreline. A high school graduate from an educated family, toiling for tuition so he could attend college in America and become a lawyer.

Lorenzo slips his glove back on and glances at Francisco. "Something wrong, little brother?" he asks in Ilokano.

"You ever regret coming here, Manong?" Francisco says.

Or, at least, he wants to.

The question has begun to germinate in his soul. He feels like if he doesn't ask someone soon, he might burn off into the atmosphere with the fog when the late-­morning autumn sun splits the clouds. He needs to know he is not alone.

Because as much as he and Lorenzo have been through together, they've never discussed regret or loneliness or anything else of consequence. They've never named what they've most deeply felt because naming a thing means you must confront it. It means lighting a candle to illuminate what's lurking in the shadows. Sometimes the only way to survive is to not know.

Francisco wipes the condensation from the rungs of his ladder as he wonders how to say what he feels. Sometimes trying to do so is like fishing with a net badly in need of repair.

In the end, he takes off his hat and smooths his hair back. "I'm okay."

Lorenzo nods and climbs up his ladder. Francisco puts his hat back on and does the same a moment later. Parallel, wordless, and with practiced hands, they begin plucking the ripe red apples from the branches. They work quickly but carefully since the fruit's skin is slick with dew and the early-­morning watering.

Can this ever be enough: picking fruit in thick fog, filling sacks to fill crates to fill trucks to fill the stomachs of those who will never spend their days in fields?

Could this ever be enough to quiet the regret, to justify an ocean crossing, to anchor him to the earth?

Francisco does not yet know.

Enzo
December 2019–­February 2020
Philadelphia, PA

Utang na Loob

Enzo gazes at the two pounds of lumpia mixture in the middle of the table as he takes his seat. He breathes in the familiar scent of raw ground pork, soy sauce, patis, garlic, and minced vegetables wafting from the large bowl, his freshly washed hands already aching in anticipation of the hundred or so lumpia he'll roll over the next couple of hours.

His mom, Julia, sits to his right. His dad, Chris, to his left. In front of each member of the family: a sheet of tinfoil, a spoon, a finger bowl of water, and a square stack of paper-­thin egg roll wrappers, thawed overnight in the refrigerator. The house is dark except for the dining room light. Old-­school R & B plays softly from the Bluetooth speaker in the kitchen. Outside, Christmas lights shimmer, and a damp snow falls with flakes that melt as soon as they touch the concrete.

Enzo cracks his knuckles and rolls up his sleeves. "Death by lumpia," he mumbles.

"¡Qué gracioso! Siempre con el mismo chiste," Julia says. "You need some new material."

"That's how we roll," Chris says.

"Like father, like son." Julia shakes her head. "Unfortunately."

Chris smirks as he lays out wrappers across his sheet of tinfoil. "I'm sure Enzo had a very difficult day watching TV and playing video games. He probably needs to rest."

Enzo looks up, skeptical. "So I don't have to help?"

"Of course you don't, anak," Chris says, then begins to plop a spoonful of filling just below the center of each wrapper. As Enzo moves to leave, Chris adds, "But remember: no help, no eat."

Excerpted from Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay. Copyright © 2024 by Randy Ribay. Excerpted by permission of Kokila. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.