I started from the back because the Davao fire crew was at the front and I didn't feel like explaining. I had the permit form the barangay captain had made me sign, but the form was for getting in through the main gate, and I didn't come in through the main gate.

My husband Ronaldo works — worked — at the Century Pacific Food warehouse in General Santos, night shift, eleven to seven, for eight years. The night of the eighth went like always. At four forty in the morning the ground danced and the warehouse came down, and the concrete-block wall fell on three workers. Two they found right away. The third was Ronaldo, and when I say was I mean was, because eight days later you don't say is.

I knelt down. I started pulling away the small pieces. The big ones I couldn't budge, and I didn't much care. I was looking for something of Ronaldo's. I was looking for his Casio watch, the one I'd bought him in March, because the old one had broken, and because he'd said he didn't need it, and because I'd bought it anyway. F-91W, black plastic strap, red digits. He had it on his wrist that night. My daughters said it was ugly. He laughed. He said: it's exact, and exactness isn't ugly.

I pulled away the pieces and in my head I had the things I told myself. I told myself that last night Ronaldo had eaten the fish with rice, and he'd eaten two plates, and he'd said little Marco had gotten 95 in math, and he'd said show me the notebook, and Marco had shown the notebook, and Ronaldo had said good boy, and then he'd told him he had to put on his sweater because at night the school gets cold, and Marco had looked at him and told him Papa I don't go to school at night, and Ronaldo had said it's cold at night for everyone, and he'd gotten up to get his jacket. That evening he'd taken the jacket with him. I hadn't found it. The firemen hadn't found the jacket.

I found a Casio. I picked it up. I turned it over. I looked at it. There was a black plastic strap. The digits were red. But the strap had a different buckle, a buckle that wasn't Ronaldo's, and on the back there was a serial number that wasn't his. His serial number I knew by heart, because when I'd bought it in March I'd written it on my phone for the warranty, and because in eight days I'd looked at my note on the phone six hundred times.

I set the Casio down on the firemen's yellow tarp. I wiped my hands on my jeans. I told myself: I keep going. I also told myself: Ronaldo isn't in this Casio, and probably he isn't in any Casio, because probably Ronaldo is under the wall, and the wall is too big for me, and the wall the others have to pull away.

Then I had a second of everything. A second is little. In a second I understood that I could keep digging for days, and I could find a hundred Casios that weren't his, and every time I found one I'd have to look at the serial number, and every time I'd have to tell myself I keep going, and every time I'd have to keep going. And I told myself: all right. I went back to digging.

The Davao firemen hadn't seen me. They were on the other side. I could hear the dog crew, the handler's voice. The dog didn't come over to this side. The landslides in the city are thirty-seven, the damaged roads are forty-five, the displaced are three hundred forty-six thousand, and the firemen are however many they are. They can't be everywhere, and it isn't for me to tell them so. I just have to keep pulling away the pieces.

At a certain point my brother-in-law arrived. He told me: Marites, come away. I told him: go home, Marco's there and Joy's there, feed them. He told me: you've been here nine hours. I told him: yes. He told me: tomorrow I'll come get you. I told him: good. He turned. He went off. I started again.

It began to rain at six in the afternoon. Mindanao rain, the kind that lasts seven minutes and stops. I covered my head with my shopping bag. I kept going. I pulled away more pieces. I found a woman's shoe, size 36, not mine, not anyone's I knew. I set it down on the yellow tarp. I started again.

At seven the barangay captain came. He told me: ma'am, we need the permit form. I told him: I have the permit form. He looked it over. He told me: this one was for getting in at nine, it's seven in the evening. I told him: yes. He told me: you have to go home. I told him: yes. I walked all the way to the main gate, I handed back the pass. Ronaldo had the Casio watch on his wrist, and he still has it, somewhere, under some piece. I set down on the yellow tarp a Casio that wasn't his, and a woman's shoe that wasn't mine, and a half-empty pack of cigarettes that wasn't anyone's, because Ronaldo didn't smoke. Tomorrow I'll come back.