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    I sat at the company's computer, my head still in a jumble. How am I going to get my wife home? She hasn't been home since I bought her to this country in 1992—over 13 years ago. I hadn't been able to send her home...and I was still unable to send her home. Was there nothing I could do? I thought over my situation. Mum was already dead; she couldn't be called on. Dad...was no longer in the picture. An eviction in 2002 plainly stated his wishes. My mother's side of the family...nothing doing. I suspect I had made a few enemies there, by asking them to co-sign a student loan for my wife to finish nursing school. No sense in antagonizing them anymore. My father's side of the family...too much of a stretch. Even if they would somehow come up with the money for my wife to return to Manila, I just couldn't bring myself to ask. I have been absent from their lives for more than 3 years at this point; an appearance at this point would only send the wrong message to all parties.

I hadn't the money to send my wife back to Manila...nor could I assemble the money to send her back in the short term. The thought now was positively suffocating. Things were in a real mess. I thought they should be better. We should be better off, on a net income of just about $2,500.00 a month. But, my friends, this is Boston—which happens to be the most expensive place to live in America. It now outstrips New York City, the former king of expensive cities to live in. Nowhere else in this country is quite as expensive as the Boston metro area. Put together rent, food, utilities, and transportation, and you are looking at very serious expenditures for a month. This city isn't for the feint of heart, or the person who is merely making a minimum wage: The average rent here for a 2-bedroom apartment, is $1,700.00 a month; we were paying next to nothing by comparison, at $875.00 a month. You could still live like a pauper on $50,000.00 a year in this city...if you did half of what you wanted to do. Worst of all, you could end up broke on all that moneyyou were earning, simply buying your necessities. I thought about where we had been, and so much further we had to go, before we really straightened out our lives. There was an extreme amount of unfinished business that we were still working on. If only I could put together the money so she could actually make the trip...

A thought occurred to me then. If I held the rent for December, I could put together about $1,300.00; that might be enough for my wife's ticket. A quick check on the Internet confirmed my suspicions; i could indeed get a ticket for my wife for something like $1,400.00. I couldn't go; I would have to stay behind and tend to the affairs here. But my wife could go...if I had the nerve to put the proposal to my landlord. At the present rate, I almost had nothing to lose...except of course, the good grace of the man. He had done us a big enough favor, renting us the apartment for the price he was charging. The real issue was, did I want to risk antagonizing him for this favor? I thought about the relationships I had possibly shafted, trying to get my wife out of Northeastern University's nursing program. Asking any kind of monetary favor was dangerous, and filled with pitfalls. Pitfalls I couldn't afford to handle with the landlord. There was no way to handle negative fallout, and that was something I had to keep in mind, in any analysis of the situation. On the other hand...

He was almost the original owner of this condominium; only one other person owned the condominium before him. The building had been converted in 1980; in 1982, he had bought the unit. He could charge a low enough rent to keep us here, and I knew that it was almost the absolute best price I could find an apartment at anywhere in this city. The situation was downright unheard of in Boston...an owner who had held a property for 23 years. It gave him unique power to set the rent according to what the tenant could fairly pay—not on what the mortgage owed was. He might just understand the situation, if I presented this carefully. In fact, might it not be possible that he might offer me such a break if I simply told him what had happened to my brother in law? It would almost be the best way to handle the situation, instead of asking for the favor outright. Let him make the offer, if it came to him.

I rang my wife again. It was around 9:15 P.M., and she picked up almost immediately. I began babbling about my plan, and she told me not to do this. I told her what we might do, and agreed to wait until I got home. I hung up, and returned to my research via the Web, in an attempt to find a better fare to send her to Manila.