Maybe if she were alive now and could give her version of this, these remarks of mine would not figure. It is possible that she thought about me all the time, that every decision was made because of me. But I think not. I think my father’s death shocked her and left her forlorn to the extent that she noticed nothing around her, and she did not know what to do. She was intensely wrapped up in herself. I spoke carefully that day, I prepared what I was going to say. And I remember that within a few minutes she came down to my bedroom and stood at the door.

“Are you saying that you don’t want to go to Molino, that you want to stay here? There’s nothing for us here.”

“I don’t want to go to a Spanish school.”

“Why don’t we go and try it? Why don’t we tell the school that we are going away for a short time?”

“How long?”

“I don’t know how long.”

“And will we leave our things here? I mean everything we own.”

“Yes, we can do that.”

“Like we’re going on a holiday?”

WE TOOK THE BUS from the city to Santa Rosa and there we waited in the bus station for a late bus to Molino. I loved the bus journey from the minute it started, the seat was comfortable and the air was warm. I soon fell asleep, and when I woke I lay back and closed my eyes and hoped that the bus would never stop, that I could dream and doze and wake again, and take a drink from the flask my mother had and stare out of the window and then doze once more, and that nothing would have any consequences, and that time would stand still. It was cold on the second bus, and I was tired now and wanted to be in my bedroom with the main light off but the door open so I could see the light from the hall. My mother was silent. Now I realize that she was fifty-six and penniless in a country which she did not understand, sitting beside a son old enough to work out strategies, hiding his erection from her as the bus thundered on toward Molino.

Aunt Matilda met us at the bus station. She was with the younger of her two sons, Pedro, who was a tall skinny boy who did not smile. Aunt Matilda spoke in Spanish to us, although my mother addressed her and Pedro in English. We had to wait at the side of the road until a truck came. My mother and I and our bags were hoisted onto the back of the truck. Then Pedro lifted his mother on and jumped on himself and told us gruffly to hold on tight. I had not realized, and my mother had not realized, that Aunt Matilda was poor.