Dad died of a stroke when I was six; my memories of him were mostly non-existent. A stick-figure man who I filled in myself, each time making him fuller and more colorful, and over time, my imagination altered the course of my memories forever.

When you lose someone at that age, your memory of them—your idea of them, really—is just a hodgepodge of other people’s stories. His old bomber jackets in the coat closet, the smell of tobacco and Old Spice embedded in the fabrics tucked in the boxes in the dark corner of the basement. Pictures… So many of them. Just a face and a body—no one I knew, not really.

For as far back as I could remember, it was just my mom and me. We lived alone in our three-bedroom townhouse; we ate easy meals together, like grilled cheese and tomato soup, or pink salmon from a can.

I enjoyed our dinners. Tucked away at our two-seater table or curled up thigh to thigh on the loveseat watching old episodes of Cheers or The Brady Bunch.

Occasionally, I complained of boredom. I made few friends and Mom made even fewer in her grown-up world, working at the local mortuary. My co-workers are a bunch of stiffs, she would say at school functions, a recycled joke for the other parents—a punchline no one seemed to understand or appreciate. But I did.

Honestly, I wasn’t all that bored. I enjoyed her company at that age more than I cared to admit. Mostly, I enjoyed being tucked away in my room, with the company of my books., My idea of an epic weekend was reading Mom’s old Harlequin romance novels or classic mysteries.

So, when Rosalee Mumford moved into our house, blood or not, I was annoyed by her presence. She was like Stella Starr from Space Invaders, this sexy marauder with her full breasts to my flat chest, her wild drawings and painting habits… her abhorrence for reading.

I hated her those first few days. We had a spare room she could have used, but Mom insisted on keeping that space to herself for sewing and praying, so after a lifetime of living as an only child with my own space, my room was suddenly rearranged. Bunk beds and an extra dresser, half the normal space for my clothes and, most importantly, my precious books.

But something happened that first summer with Rosalee… We might have been different, our personalities, but we connected in a way I’d never anticipated.

She had dreams, nightmares really. And after a few nights of tossing and turning, screams and shouts, she asked if she could get in bed with me. I guess most people would have thought it was strange—two fourteen-year-old girls crowded together on a twin-sized mattress. I certainly thought it was strange at first.