At fifty-five, Lamberto Imperial has nothing left: no money, no marriage, and no contact with his brother in five years. He climbs sacred Mount Banahaw in search of the hermit Tatang Igme and the Balik-Balik (the Returning), a rite said to send a man back to fix his life. The price is that he keeps every fact of what he did but leaves behind what it cost him to feel. He wakes at twenty-five in 1996, with the wife he lost still at his side and every right answer in his head.
His success is fast and total. But Cecilia begins to fade, and a stooped stranger in his own jacket keeps trying to stop him. Then Lamberto finds thirty-one tally marks carved into a tree and a dresser; he has done this before and lost every time. To get out, he has to take back the grief he left behind and learn how to live in an ordinary life.
Reset: The High Cost of a Second Chance is a literary fantasy about regret, accountability, and the difference between fixing the past and carrying it.
