“...I have so many dreams of my own, and I remember things from my childhood, from when I was a girl and a young woman, and I haven't forgotten a thing. So why did we think of Mom as a mom from the very beginning? She didn't have the opportunity to pursue her dreams, and all by herself, faced everything the era dealt her, poverty and sadness, and she couldn't do anything about her very bad lot in life other than suffer through it and get beyond it and live her life to the very best of her ability, giving her body and her heart to it completely. Why did I never give a thought to Mom's dreams?”

“deep down...she's a good woman...you should be proud of her." When I told my mom about this, she just looked very sad because he could never say those things to her. Not ever. Not even when he walked her down the aisle.”

“There are things I need to ask her. Not what happened, back then in the time I lost, because now I know that. I need to ask her why. If she remembers. Perhaps she’s forgotten the bad things, what she said to me, what she did. Or she does remember them, but in a minor way, as if remembering a game, or a single prank, a single trivial secret, of the kind girls tell and then forget. She will have her own version. I am not the centre of her story, because she herself is that. But I could give her something you can never have, except from another person: what you look like from outside. A reflection. This is part of herself I could give back to her. We are like the twins in old fables, each of whom has been given half a key.”

“I could tell that Mom was dreaming, but I didn't want to know what she was dreaming about, because I had enough of my own nightmares, and if she had been dreaming something happy, I would have been angry at her for dreaming something happy.”

“Why did you marry Dad, Mom?" My mother sniffled through her nose, looked at me, then smiled. "I wanted something more and he was it. We both had big dreams." "That must have taken a lot of courage," I said. "To marry Dad. He was so different from you.""It was hardly courageous. It was just the only thing to do. We were in love.”

“She was actually a recording star in Puerto Rico when my mom was growing up. My mom was always stuck sitting backstage somewhere or sitting in a front row, watching a performance her entire childhood. She thought that when her mom stopped performing she was relieved of those duties, but all I wanted to do was sing, ever since I was born, so she's always been backstage.”