She sashays back over to the firepit and smoothly drops into a cross-legged seat on the grass without even jostling the now still and peacefully feeding baby boy.

“Char, where’d the . . . is that your . . . you had a baby?”

“Got him down the Congo.” She shrugs. “Those African tribeswomen, they don’t care. They’ve got more babies than they know what to do with. Better me snatching the little fart than a bloody tiger, or him dying of ammonia.”

“The Congo . . . you just took him? And came home?” I blink, still attempting to process.

Char’s oddly coiffed head pivots back on her pencil thin neck and she howls with laughter. The baby doesn’t flinch. A tiny trickle of bluish breast milk dribbles from the corner of his soft mouth.

“Jesus, Crow, ya dumb ass! Of course he’s mine. How else would I get these giant milk-bag knockers he’s slurpin’ on? Usually, I tell people I stole him first and then whip out the tit, just to see the looks on their faces, but the little bugger was starving. God, you’re some gall-able.”

She barely slows down enough to breathe as she speaks. The phoney British accent has dissolved into a nasally Town brogue. Because even though Char grew up Down North, her mother was from The Mines, so she’s Cape Breton bilingual. Those accents die hard. Or not at all.

“So, brain tumours, eh? That’s the shits.”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“I overheard.”

“Overheard? Overheard where?”

“I dunno. Some old broad in the line at Shoppers. Or Needs. Somewhere, I was buying arse ointment. Word’s out that you’re home and you’ve got brain tumours.”

“They sell arse ointment at Needs?” I say, staring at her in wonderment at how that part ended up sounding like the most salient piece of information.

“Depends on what you use for arse ointment, now don’t it?” Char smirks. “So, what have you been up to since you got home?”

“Nothing. Writing. Remembering. Feeling like shit. Waiting.”

“So, how bad are we talkin’? With the tumours.”

“They can’t cut them out without leaving me blind, partially paralyzed, and shitting myself every time I blink, kinda bad. Symptoms don’t respond much to treatments, and they think it’s a type that grows and changes and can get really bad in a hurry. Need a biopsy to confirm.”

“Oh, man.”

We instinctively avoid looking at each other while we let that sink in. I twirl another wad of dryer lint into a ball, while Char twirls a section of her baby’s hair into a tighter coil.

“So, when are you gonna shave your head?” She is sud­denly beaming.

“They only shave a little patch for the biopsy. I can hide it.” I crumple up a piece of ancient newspaper and tuck it under a piece of wood to bolster the burgeoning fire. “And I’m not sold on the radiation and chemo thing.”

“That’s not why you have to do it.” Char laughs. “It’s one of those things. You always said ‘I’m gonna shave my head one of these days.’ But now you’re staring the ultimate day-stealer right in the face. Shave your fucking head, girl! It says freedom. Fearlessness. Hair is deeply symbaltic, ya know.”