He really missed them sometimes.

He doesn't really let on about it, but I know better than that. I've known him too long to not pick up on these things; it's kind of my responsibility. The way he acts when it rains, the face he gets when I talk about my mother, the tears in his eyes when he thinks no one is looking . . . I see it all.

And, you know, I get it. That absence he must feel, having never gotten to know them. He had to grow up with that rejection, too young to understand why it had happened to him. He definitely has it worse.

At least I got the chance to meet her. I didn't have to deal with longing for a chance to know someone, missing two people who I'd never really known. But for him . . . he lost his entire background.

His world had disappeared, was never really there. And, even if he never talks about it, I have to think . . .

Sometimes I think he's still trying to find his way home, building up the place and people he never got the chance to see. Looking for his old world.