After the delicious meal in the early mornings, you wanted to relax and talk at the table and it was perfect when Yumi and Ms woo sat around the table as well.

“Ms woo” you said in the nicest way possible “how come you ended here in the most unseen, unwanted place?”

Ms woo and Yumi looked at you with the most uncomfortable gazes, Yumi with a very worried look and a hint of anger and Ms woo just uncomfortable all over.

WOW! You thought the first Question and she’s already uneasy. You smile, though it wasn’t how you would act. You wanted to ask as many as you could so that you could trust her and not doubt her motives.

“Well” Ms woo started uneasily “I told Yumi about it so you could ask her...” she trailed and mumbled a little too loudly. You heard Arnold and a grin of a smile lit across your face.  The game has started and it’s set.

It was to ask  Ms woo the most personal questions you wanted to ask and see if she’ll break and crumble but if not then you could trust her even though right now it wasn’t trust you could do because Ms woo wasn’t saying anything.

“Ms woo I know I must be prying on things I shouldn’t have but you know our secrets so we, mostly I want to know you. So we could get to know each other properly” you say in a reassuring, gentle way that you knew how.  Yumi muttered “liar” and all you could think was tell me.

“Well if you insist, sweetie” Ms woo alleged “love”

And you sat silent and wondered what love meant in moving to the most not wanted place of living was.  Then she said it.

“When I was 20 I was new to everything here. I came here to migrate and I found a lovely rich house far away from this shabby place. “Ms woo started “I was young and hopeless and I wanted love and a man who was ready to marry me. It happened as quickly as I had thought it. I was blinded by my thoughts and married him knowing I might love him and because I had to marry to stay here. We spent two happy years together and I fell pregnant. It was the best thing I could ever be but he left after a gambling problem. So I had to do things myself until my son Arnold was born. When Arnold was 8 he began getting tetanus and I was worried that he would have it forever. So I went to a doctor and many other doctors until.... his father came and bought him to America for treatment and made a few of his gambling buddies take everything I had and I had to stay here away from them, from then I had to start over.”

“WOW” you said so loudly that both Yumi and Ms woo looked at you shocked. You smiled with teeth showing. “So you’re in your 30’s now right?” and Ms woo nodded slowly.

Silence came and Yumi want to change the subject only to be interjected by Ms woo who explained about her life to us as if knew what you were thinking.

You found out that the gamblers once found Ms woo and she had to pay them off, starting her life over and over again with little money she had and the money she had to get to pay them off. Ms woo told you about how her husband had divorced her and how she left and more.

You told Ms woo your story about your parents and what you thought about after. You told Ms woo about the Orphanage and how you escaped and how you got the money to spend on things.

With many chats and the feeling of a family you told Ms woo why you asked about the house and why.

Yumi looked at you furious and then you knew what you had forgotten all this time.

“Yumi, your birthday is in two days right? We should at least get you something” you randomly explained and Yumi slouched, deflating her shoulders and pouting.

You smiled and gave Yumi a warm hug (once you got out of your seat) and Yumi beamed, smiling the biggest smile while Ms woo looked from where she sat. You pulled her in for a group hug and it lasted a very long time.

You won your game; you knew what her intention was and what it was. You realized because of Ms Woo’s son Arnold she wanted to look after both of you because she lost her son to a man she used to marry and missed looking after a child.

All this time you thought Arnold was a man and you find out his a boy probably in his teens.

You think about your parents and realise the one you pictured wasn’t the one you remembered in real life, the parents who left you.

How could you have parents you could picture and parents you remember abandoning you. Those four different people had the same roles but who were strangers to you no matter how you saw it. You figured that you shouldn’t worry about them if they wanted to be a memory to you whether they were real or not because they weren’t in your life. Not anymore.  

Yumi, you thought had told many things to Ms woo and Ms woo to Yumi.  You they didn’t tell you, if you weren’t the one who could be trusted not the other way around. Then again they needed each other for support and you wanted support for your life.

You wanted a better job and a better life and they wanted what little of it that you wanted. They wanted a family and small things you would have found pointless, that’s what was different and that was why things were different.  You wanted a better future and that was what you wanted besides everything else injured or not, having a guardian or not because it was bigger than that. It way more than a problem, a problem you didn’t even know you had....