Early one mid-August morning, I showed up and Tishy wasn’t there. The front windows of the schoolhouse were smashed. The TV was, too. The kitchen table was on its side, bottles and butts everywhere. And Grubby had a black eye and a blood-crusted nose, courtesy of one of Tishy’s “boyfriends.”

Mama came and helped me clean up the boys. We packed little bags of their favourite toys and clothes. I called Child­ren’s Aid, and Mama waited with me until the social worker came to collect the Alward children. I never saw them again. Mama tried to update me on them from time to time, but I didn’t want to hear it. It was bound to be another sad story.

“Harry Alward,” says the old man who just finished shovelling the snow off my steps, holding out his hand. “Tishy’s brother. That’s Lukas in the green jacket. Phil in the orange hat. And Grubby at the plow.” Grubby parks the plow, hops down, and gallops over.

“Crow!” he says, stopping short to doff his hat like some kind of gentleman.

“Oh for the love of God, Grubby Alward! Look at you! Ya grew up.” I choke back tears.

“More by good luck den good man’gment.” He grins.

It’s scarcely past eight o’clock. But loud and clear, my mother’s voice echoes through my mind, and before I know it, her words escape from my lips, “Well don’t just stand there. Yas must be ready to eat a horse and chase the driver after all that work. Come in. I’ll put the tea on.”

The Alward men attempt to decline, but I’ll have none of it.

The boys tell me all about their kids and the snow removal business they run with their uncle, who ended up getting custody of them. They tell me about how Mama would go visit all of them — including Tishy — for years afterwards, how she’d hug the bejesus out of them every time, and tousle their hair like she did when they were little. They said even Tishy eventually got herself together enough to see her grandkids at Christmas. Around each of their heads, sturdy red-orange flickers dance within soft blue ovals, the edges of which diffuse into the uncoloured space like watercolour robin’s eggs.

Maybe I didn’t ruin their lives. Maybe I’m not such a prick after all.

Then again, maybe I am. Because a few hours later, when Becky Chickenshit shows up on my doorstep, all my downhome “Come in, I’ll put the tea on!” warm fuzziness goes right down the toilet. It takes every ounce of self-restraint in my still bleary-eyed, braless, yoga-pantsed body to not slam the door in her snivelling little shrew face.

Becky Chickenshit stands there, the awkward rhythm of her blinking eyes magnified by the thick lenses of her horn-rimmed glasses, face pulled taut by the bobby pins haphazardly holding her hair back. Her long red peacoat gives way to a gaudy floral broom skirt that hovers above a pair of beige pleather granny boots. She looks Amishly uptight and hippy dippy ridiculous at the same time.