LOIS PAUL HAD BEEN a single mother in Saskatchewan, working a minimum-wage job, when her six children were taken from her and put up for adoption.

I interviewed Elsie Tolmar, one of Paul’s children, for a three-part story on social services.

The Adopt Indians and Métis Program.

Tolmar had been adopted by a Norwegian couple who didn’t tell her she had been adopted until she forced the question.

“I was probably in my late twenties when I figured it out,” Tolmar told me. “I mean, look at me. You going to mistake me for a Norwegian?”

I WANDER TO THE buffet and put food on my plate. I’m still not hungry, but I know that I need to eat. I figure that Mimi will come rushing into the breakfast room at the last minute.

But she doesn’t.

I sit at the table until the buffet has been cleared away and the staff begins looking at me sideways. This is not the first meal that Mimi has missed, and as I climb the stairs, I find that I’m somewhat irritated.

After all, we paid for these meals.

Mimi is sitting in the chair in her bra and underpants, her feet propped up on the window ledge. She has her sketch pad out and is working on another drawing.

“I wasn’t hungry,” she says without looking up, “so I thought I’d do some work.”

“You missed breakfast, again.”

“We’ll have an early lunch.”

“And you missed Oz.”

“Your imaginary breakfast buddy.”

“He’s not imaginary. He’s going to Amsterdam.”

“We went to Amsterdam,” says Mimi. “You remember?”

The sketch is similar to the other one Mimi had drawn. A solitary figure walking on the Charles Bridge. She’s laid in a dark background that is cut with the lights from the ornate standards set on the stone walls. It appears that the figure is carrying something.

“Uncle Leroy?”

“Maybe,” says Mimi. “I haven’t decided.”

“It’s moody.”

“It could be you.”

“Is that supposed to be a bundle?”

Mimi darkens a shadow next to one of the statues. “I could put Eugene and the Other Demons in right about here.”

“Or a bucket and a brush.”

“Then it wouldn’t be you.”

I lie on the bed, my hands on my chest. I could probably stay here all day. My eyes feel normal. My legs aren’t threatening to cramp. My stomach is still a little tender from the day before but seems mostly settled.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” says Mimi. “As soon as I finish this, I’ll want to find food.”

I TOOK A PHOTOGRAPH of Tolmar, and then I took a photograph of Tolmar and her three children.

“Mom and Dad are dead now, so it doesn’t matter.”

Tolmar had all the information on the adoption and a copy of her mother’s file.

“You know why they took us away from her?”