"They left me with a junk trader when I was small. I had to earn my keep as soon as it was clear they weren't coming back anytime soon."

There's something defensive about it; her parents must've had a reason. They'd gotten delayed, or it was too difficult to come back to Jakku. She doesn't think they'd had much -- otherwise why would they have been living on Jakku at all? It could've been too far, too expensive, too difficult.

They would've come back if they'd known, surely.

"There wouldn't have been enough left to find me, anyway. All the Jedi in my time are either dead or in hiding. No one would come to Jakku openly in search of a Force-sensitive child."

She knows he's right about what might've happened to her -- for all she knows that is what happened. Maybe her parents had needed the money; they'd left their Force-sensitive child with someone who could make use of her intuition if nothing else. He'd always said she was the best because she was so small she could get places others couldn't; if he'd told her anything else might she have tried to leave?

It's a hard thing to realize. As if sensing her sadness, the shy kitten mews plaintively and nudges her hand until she pets it absentmindedly.