She’d put her hand on it for a few minutes, before she’d even get a Band-Aid or peroxide.

“How’d she break up fights between your big galoot uncles?”

She’d grab them by the ear, and they’d stop without another word.

“What did she try to do to that head of yours after you moved home?”

She’d pat it like I was a friggin’ puppy, every chance she got.

“Effie could lay hands on people,” Peg says with a sad hush in her voice.

“Like reiki?”

“Lord, no!” Peggy huffs. “Effie’s gift was more than that New Age energy jazz. She healed people, Crow. Didn’t just make them feel better. Her hands did something special, but there was a part that she never let on. She absorbed the hurts. Physical, but sometimes mental, too. Those newspapers you burned in your little bonfire? She saved those because there were stories there, people she helped who went on to live good lives. She needed reminders of that because her hands, her whole body, didn’t know what to do with the pain she took besides hold it. All gifts have a price tag. Christ, I wish she —” Peggy pumps the brakes hard as we merge off the highway and onto the main drag in Town, Town. A dusty little band of blue bricks begins to compact itself in front of her mouth.

Every time Mama dropped me at Peggy’s while she went to visit some random old biddy on the road just to “be a good neighbour,” I rolled my eyes. Every time I couldn’t have the car because she was volunteering at the hospital or had to rush to a first responder call or had to go “give someone a hand,” I huffed. And every time I curled up on my mother’s lap with a skinned knee or a broken heart, and she’d hold me tight, I just assumed that I was strong and tough and able to will away the bulk of my hurt. All the while, Scruffy Effie Fortune was quietly, thanklessly, willingly taking on the burden of other people’s wounds. Mine included. And for the first time since I heard the words “brain tumours” in the aftermath of my Toronto subway seizure scene, something that isn’t overwhelming terror masquerading as Fuck It Bucket List, spit-in-yer-eye bravado washes over me. A wave of hope. Maybe, just maybe, Mama’s hands healed me.

“So, we’ve got a genetic lineage of haywire senses with either half-assed impractical applications, or the potential to, I dunno, save people’s lives. But we’re also prone to going nuts and dying tragically before we ever get the chance to figure it out?” I say. “That’s not a blessing. And it’s outlandish as fuck,” I say, pretending I’m not fazed by hope’s fleeting flicker.

“Think what you want,” Peggy says as we pull into the parking lot of the hospital. “For all I know, Black Bernie Fortune’s blood was cursed but Lucy Dougall’s heart was blessed, and there’s a war between the two being fought in each of us. But I’ll tell you this, trees grow best with a shovel of shit round the roots. That’s not outlandish. That’s nature’s truth.”