After finishing my soup, I went to the popiah stall. “Auntie, can I ask you something?” The woman in an apron and batik shirt motioned for a man to take over. Her hair was short and black, sprinkled with silver. Her face held many wrinkles and was dotted with moles from her ear to chin. She nodded at me kindly, and I pulled out a photo of my mother.

It had been difficult for me to select a photo to bring. The night before we were to fly out, I was sitting on the rug in my bedroom, loose photos strewn about and album pages open, panicked that I might not find anything but jarred by how much I had to search through. It was as if I had suddenly woken from a coma, still groggy as the memories of my past life flooded into my head. The photos jogged so many memories that I had forgotten or repressed.

I was about to give up when I pulled out an album from our road trip to Waterton Park. I remembered how she rubbed her ankle incessantly, always cold. Father had taken a photo of Mother alone, facing the camera, with the mountains towering in the background. She was wearing an oversized cream cardigan, her hair blowing gently to the right. Mother wasn’t smiling, but the crisp air brought out the rose in her cheeks. She stood pin straight, arms by her sides. It was a beautiful portrait, and although a stranger might see it as the perfect tourist snap, I knew that behind it was Mother’s unhappiness. Father had captured her perfectly in that moment.

The instant the woman from the popiah stall saw the photo she exclaimed, “Swee Hua!” But then she shook her head. She didn’t speak English, so I tried Hokkien. “Lu pat kua ke ee bo? You know her?”

The woman’s eyes lit up. She told me that Swee Hua had been here many years ago. But she had died a few months after.

The auntie said it so nonchalantly, like she was telling me what ingredients were in her popiah. Then she took up a cleaver and started chopping cucumber. Aghast, I quickly asked her for details.

“I don’t know anything else. She was working for the cendol stall there.” She pointed to a cart that displayed fruit and a transparent container of green noodles. “The uncle there may know. You go talk to him, okay?”

I was stunned by how quickly the woman dismissed me. She hadn’t even asked why I was looking for her. She had forgotten about me already, crushing peanuts in her mortar and pestle. Her lineup needed tending to.

Tears welling in my eyes, I looked up at the whirling fans and saw a crow sitting in the rafters, cawing, Oh-ah. As I clutched the old photograph of Mother, the commotion in the kopitiam could not cover my loud sobs.

John came over to me, and all I could say was “She’s dead. She’s dead.”