Papi told me my mother had gone away to take a job. That's what he said at first. That she was so sorry she had to leave, but she would eventually maybe come back. I kept hoping for that. And I guess I still would be, except we heard like a couple years after that how she had been found in a squatter house in Niagara Falls. And it wasn't really so sad that she was dead, I mean, she wasn't ever around. But, like, what really weirds me out was thinking how I could have just taken the bus out to meet her anytime. I mean, if I had been old enough to take the bus back then.