Stacey Fortune would go all Sex and the City Shopaholic Girl Power on this whole shitty deal. Because Kris Kristofferson was right, freedom was just another word for nothing left to lose. And once again I was free to be whatever I wanted, including — but not limited to — a nightclubbing cougar with no standards and several credit cards. Not Scruffy Effie’s daughter, one of the poor cursed Fortunes from the Halfway Road. Not Crow, the high school scandal turned university Beer Pong champ, nor Stacey the smiling Viva Rica shill. Not even the future Mrs. Dave Salyszyn, uptown Rosedale yummy mummy to be. I was gearing up to be a friggin’ phoenix, emerging in a flash of golden mid-life glory, rising from the ashes of an ego burned by other people’s assholery. But I didn’t get a chance to be a full-fledged phoenix because brain tumours have a way of fucking with such plans, and the phoenix life burns up a godawful pile of resources in a hurry. So here I am. Plain old Crow. Again.

Which means that my mother will still bust in through my bedroom door without knocking and scare the shit out of me. I used to roll my eyes and yam at her about it. She’d fold her arms across her chest, listen to me rant a bit, then snap, “What’s this, the Greeting Gale Inn? Knock knock, housekeeping? Listen, this is my house missy, and I’ll walk into a room as I see fit.” Then, for the hundredth time, she’d regale me with tales about how the shack she grew up in didn’t even have doors, and the bathroom was a three-walled outhouse in the front yard. “If you want privacy, go in to the bathroom and be glad the whole of the Halfway Road isn’t watching ya piss.”

Now, I don’t protest, even as she thumps into the middle of my room and grunts, “You’re not going to the doctor dressed like that? Like a friggin’ lumberjack.”

“It’s retro fashion, Ma. And you’re one to talk.” I nod toward her ridiculous Greeting Gale Inn housekeeper’s uniform. What kind of an arsehole makes his aging female motel staff wear pouf-sleeved, full-skirted dresses with white aprons while they make beds and scrub toilets all day? An arsehole by the name of Jason Gale. He was in my grad class, too. First Love was “money,” Final Destiny was “to inherit his grandfather’s motel,” and his Favourite Quote was “Clothes make the man.” So he makes my mother go to work dressed like a drab version of Alice in Wonderland. If she and the other women say a word about it, their shifts might get shorter and shittier. They might find themselves cleaning the rooms of every bedwetter, hair shedder, prom nighter, and honeymooner that comes through the front desk. And I know this. So I immediately feel like a heel for teasing Mama about the dress.

She picks up a teddy bear and whiffs it at my head, but misses by a mile. Then she pulls a small silver flask out of her Greeting Gale dress pocket and takes a swig.