I was properly keeping the backpacks inside the bus and through the window, I noticed the wild, searching look on my father's face. I went curiously to the door and called out, "Hey, papá?" His eyes immediately met mine and like a hot water bag placed on a tired body, the muscles of his face relaxed. "Qué pasó?"

"Ah, nothing," he said dismissively, entering the red bus. "I didn't know you were in."

"I was just keeping the bags in place."

"Yeah, good." He sat next to me, rubbing his worn-out thighs. "I thought you got lost."

I laughed shortly, but his eyes were gravely averted to the floor. "Oh, why do you think I would get lost at a bus stop?"

"You did when you were little. Three years old. We were going to your abuela's house like today and she was going to see you for the first time after you were born," he said fondly, remembering my little scrawny self in frilly, princess frocks and kid shoes which had neon lights on.

"This is sort of my own rebirth," I said humorously, flipping my blue hair.

He dryly shook his head. "Your poor abuela will get a stroke seeing that." He was about to say something further when this random stout stranger nearly elbowed him in the eyes while trying to stuff his fat, tote bags up in the storage area. My father dodged his sharp elbows quickly. "No modales . . . "

"Cerdo sin modales . . . "

"Parece un cerdo," my dad added and I snickered.

The stout man suddenly turned around, his face red, resembling a giant watermelon.

"Él entiende nosotros," I whispered surreptitiously and my dad shushed me.

Glaring daggers at us, the stranger mannerly sat like a Victorian lady and my dad mocked a sigh of relief which made me snicker again, earning another glare from the stranger.

The bus started moving, it's pace escalating upon reaching the highway. My dad cautiously began removing our lunchboxes and the steam from the hot fried rice made me feel like home in this public transport. There were pickled vegetables on the side and big packets of potato chips. My dad easily opened one and courteously offered it to the stout stranger who we had called a pig in Spanish and who was raving mad because he understood us. The stout man eyed the salted chips suspiciously, then after a long pause, took one.

My dad and I eased into our seats, sharing our meals with him as dad narrated us some local news in Spanish.

*

We visited my grandmother who was as healthy as Queen Elizabeth II and she had fed us with food fit for an entire, starving army. Although she welcomed us with the maternal warmth of amiable, old women, I could see pity clouding her eyes. The melancholy way in which the corners her eyes creased further and the low bend of her light eyebrows whenever she addressed my father or I. I could sense the stiffness in my father, the refusal to hold eye-contact for a long time with any of his accomplished, blatantly patronising siblings and the quiet submission to silence. All because we were poor.

As if being deprived of wealth, we were deprived of our speech too.

It was night and peering out of the closed bus window, I could see nothing, but the soft reflection of my sleeping father. His mouth was slightly open and although the handsome features of his youth hadn't faded, the handsomeness of them was greatly diminished by the exhaustion. His lustreless hair wasn't as thick as before and there were many grey hair growing in his sideburns.

His early morning cheerfulness had dimmed like the highway lights outside, replaced by the grim attitude which he wore like his second skin.

When our stop arrived, I woke up my father hurriedly. "We reached!"

His eyes slowly adjusted to the bright lights in the bus, water surfacing in them, from sadness or sleep, I couldn't tell. We awkwardly stumbled down with our backpacks, feeling like a week had passed, but it was only one Sunday. My father was all groggy so I sensibly didn't speak to him on our way to the apartment, also not wanting to bring up any topic of grandma or cousins.

I was longingly dreaming of sinking into the bed, pulling my blanket up and drifting into the wonders of sleep when we heard loud, crashing noises from Sam's home. Alarmingly, my dad and I rushed there, the corridors passing by like a blurry video in the background. Sam's house's door flung open and an aggressively, screaming woman literally ran out, her disheveled, frizzy hair like a witch's.

From behind the swaying door, emerged a lean Sam, supporting his father who was bleeding profusely from the top of his head. My dad instantly abandoned his backpack and swung another arm of Sam's injured father around his broad, sagging shoulder. Sam's dad was whimpering like a sorrowful animal being run over by a vehicle.

I dourly realised that the witch had been Sam's poor excuse of a mother who had attacked her husband, rendering him to the extreme condition of an invalid.

"Clean up, Mariana!" My father commanded a mild panic in his voice which had dissipated his earlier drowsiness and I met the hardened eyes of Sam for a brief second. His countenance suggested of not fear, but irony. As if he had prepared for this day to eventually happen and found it anti-climatic to his tastes.

I bewilderingly watched them struggle all the way down and when they vanished from my sight, I entered the house in disorder. There were red blots of blood everywhere and one would mistake them for paint if they hadn't seen what had previously occurred. I was still deep in disbelief as I soaked a washcloth in clean water and squatted down, trying to wipe the blood, but only smearing it like marmalade on bread. I had to squeeze the washcloth once to drain it of blood and witness my hands colouring.

Deserting all my duties, I grabbed a rough, prickly sponge and scrubbed my hands with the focused determination of a murderer washing off his sins for salvation.