Tamisha’s relationship with her mother was even more absurd, acting like conflicting
enemies in high school. | don’t know why Tamisha wanted to live with her mother.
Tabby snorted a lot of cocaine, and other drugs | was ignorant to at the time. Tamisha,
following in her mother’s footsteps, was often high or drunk coming home from school.
Rooms got very tense between the two of them. One evening, | came home to them
screaming at each other, violent, like a tsunami. Words full of anger bouncing the walls
like crashes of water. Tamisha was insisting her mother punch her square in the face. | felt
so powerless beside them; like | were a fragile little city they were about to swallow.

By the time February arrived | had decided to drop out of my course. Part of my reasoning was
that | wanted to be closer to my new roommates. | wanted to work full-time in construction, which

is what they all did together. More people moved into our home, Tabby’s friend Kristin being one
of them. The man I'd met in the beginning had moved out. And Tabby’s boyfriend, released from
prison, often stayed late. We even had a young male roofer crashing on our community couch.
He had the best seat in the house, observing all the bodies constantly fluctuating, in and out like
a tide. | tell you, all the different stories made me feel like | was a part of something important.

On days where we all worked together, often putting in twelve-hour shifts, our quirky colloquy and

tender age gaps made for interesting company. I'd never quite understood family, but this felt like
it. We'd hot box the car on the drive home, ordering almost entire menus in drive through windows.
| familiarized myself with landmarks—a giant ape hanging from the outside of a movie theatre, the
sunset looking like a subtle outbreak of sea, spilling over the road. And looking to my left, seeing
Tamisha singing along to the radio, | felt the safest here.

Once at 3 A.M, | awoke from a peaceful sleep to the sound of Tabby crying out like a child. | flung
my hair away from my eyes, and shook myself awake. Right after, | heard a man howl out as well. |
ripped my door open, mounting up the basement steps. | got to the top and ran into almost everyone
who lived there. They were circled around Tabby, who was being beat by her boyfriend. Tabby’s eyes
bulged out of her head like a rodent in the wild, acknowledging its death. | felt like | was drowning;
like nothing could stop this moment. Nigel, the man of the house appeared from a different bedroom,
he grabbed Tabby’s boyfriend by the skull, headbutting it into his own. What happened after looked
like Niagara Falls, in blood. Blood stayed on everything for weeks. It lingered on our kitchen floor,
and on the staircase railings like soap grime that builds up on bathroom sinks. | slept in my car.

In my final days spent at the home, our little family began to break apart. People going every
which way. Tabby had to leave Calgary, in attempts to run from the police. Tamisha, her daughter,
was put in a ward after two suicide attempts at the house. Cheyanne moved in with her mother.
Nigel and Kristin swiftly abandoned Calgary as well. Our tribe had dissolved like little grains
of salt spreading themselves across the ocean floor. We didn‘t speak again. We didn't speak

of anything that happened. Although, whether they know it or not, these people shaped

me. They took me into their shelter of home, and love, during a time | felt so alone. They
listened when | felt no one could hear me. They let me be a part of something. They took

care of me. And amid some terrible dysfunction, | discovered family.