He drew in a deep breath. "I knew her before. Graciela Cruz hired me 45 years ago. I have lived in this church since 1944, and in all that time she has never taken anyone else there. She always goes alone. I think you are special to her." I could tell something was burning inside him. His eyes never wavered from the bible. "She hasn't even taken the other ones like her that have visited."

"You've met others?" I asked in an excited whisper.

"Three have come here to visit since I've been here. Two of them come back every few years."

"How did you know they were like her?"

"The tattoo," he said plainly. I felt like an idiot for asking such an obvious question. "But I would know anyway," he continued. "There is something about them that is unmistakable. I think I would know one anywhere now, even without the tattoo."

"What is it?"

Antonio looked up at me. "Power. They hold power over you, especially with their eyes."

He was right about the eyes, at least I thought so from what I'd seen of Poppy. She probed you with them and knew exactly what you were thinking or let you know exactly what she was thinking. "Why are you telling me this Antonio? I'm sure you're aware of how secretive she is about this."

"She is secretive with the rest of the world, not with her own kind. You are lucky," he said getting up. "I wish I was like her.”

I didn't speak as he left. His words seemed to hang in the air until I digested them one by one. I had never thought of being lucky. I never saw anything particularly lucky in being alone, but the more I thought about it on that pew, the luckier I seemed. I would live beyond the annihilation of death. I would eventually be able to live in the same style Poppy did, and I would never lose this identity, this self that I have, that I am now. Like Poppy said, it was the closest thing to immortality anyone could ever find. I realized then that I always knew I would come back again and again, and that I'd lived in fear of it, like a rollercoaster that never stops so you can get off. Until today I had been on that rollercoaster alone. I was lucky not because I would come back, but because I would come back to someone, something, someplace that was home.

The images of Nez-Lah, Bando, Marco, and Louis grew dim and faded to black as I sat alone. I eagerly looked forward for the first time in years. The answers were finally finding their questions.

Poppy called out for Antonio, who was already halfway up the stairs to the loft before her last Spanish syllable was spoken. He came back down the stairs in less than a minute, turned right and walked out the front door without a word.