The Spenser gravel pit never panned out, so they sold it to their buddies in the municipality for twice what they paid for it, making out like the well-heeled bandits they were. The bandits they still are, no doubt. The only thing that stands on that land now is a cracked wooden billboard with peeling paint that used to read, Welcome to The Mines. Rich in Coal and Hospitality. Those things are long gone now, too.

Still, as we drive by the site of the Fortune’s familial pain and undoing, Mama grumbles, “Never should’ve let Gordie sell that land. They ain’t making any more.”

“They should at least fix the sign,” I say. “Maybe to say, Welcome to The Mines. Rich in Drunks, Drugs, and Pogey Scams.”

“Watch it, missy,” Mama growls. “There, but for the grace of dumb luck, go you.”

Dumb luck? Did my mother not get the memo about her whole damn family, us Poor Unfortunate Fortunes? Her grandmother Black Agnes got us all hexed in an occult turf war. Mama’s father, Black Bernie, was the only one who survived the fire his mother set in her madness, and that’s only because he was given away to the nearest neighbours when he was a baby. Neighbours who, by the way, all perished in a mysterious house fire of their own when Black Bernie was a teenager, just as he turned old enough to take a job in the mines and inherit the land his birth family left him. Mama’s got eleven siblings, and those who are still alive are the epitome of ruin — largely due to some variation of the aforementioned drunks, drugs, and pogey scams. I’m thirty-eight years old, all of my cousins are already dead, and I’ve got inoperable brain tumours. Dumb luck, my arse.

My doctor’s appointment goes something like this: Blah blah blah, three tumours. Tricky type. Trickier locations. Operation, impossible. One step at a time. Blah blah blah, biopsy for cancer. Hole in your skull. Hollow needles in your brain. But don’t worry, we have robots. Blah blah blah, here’s a booklet. And a drawing. Big words. Aren’t you warm in that plaid shirt?

Except imagine all that delivered in a crisp, soothing, smart-sounding Indian accent. And in full, coherent sentences. I don’t know what those coherent sentences actually were because I spaced out for most of the appointment. I smiled. I nodded. I said, “Okay,” even though it wasn’t. “Yes, I understand,” even though I didn’t. And “Thank you, Dr. Divyaratna” even though I wanted to tell her to shut up. Mama paid better attention, I hope.

On the drive home, Mama tries to talk to me. I try to answer, but I can’t stop staring at the handy little diagram Dr. Divyaratna drew for me. The type of tumour is written in all caps at the top of the sheet, yelling “ASTROCYTOMA.” There’s a sketch of a brain that looks more like a sad, lopsided cloud. Crooked arrows label the frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes, where the three tumours live. The tumours themselves are represented by smudged-ink stars. By the time we hit the stretch of highway where the nearby Chickenshit family farm perfumes the air, I manage to peel my eyes away from the paper, but end up staring out the window through the same numb zombie eyes. I can’t even bring myself to bitch about the stench for fear it will come out sounding like a sob.