We chatted about nothing in particular for a lazy hour or so until Kelli, finally bored with our bleary conversation, wandered off to the other room to stare out the window, which signalled to Trevor and me that it was time he and I haul ourselves up “off our hungover arses” and clear the dishes.

I was wiping down the counter, grimacing at the grinding noise the dishwasher was making, when I remembered Jessica. She was bringing over potential buyers to see the house later this afternoon. I turned to Trevor in a panic. I still needed to tidy up, vacuum, bake cookies, and buy flowers.

“Number one, fuck the cookies,” pronounced Trevor. “Pardon my French. That’s above and beyond on a day like today. You clean up, I’ll run out and get the flowers. And I’ll grab a can of Glade or whatever from the drugstore.”

“Ok, but can you get one that smells like cookies or baking something?” I said. “And then I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do with Kelli for an hour.”

“What time did you say they were coming?”

“Around three,” I said.

“We’ll go for fish and chips,” said Trevor without missing a beat, as if this was the most obvious of solutions.

“Fit-chip,” echoed Kelli from the next room. You’d almost think she had been sitting there waiting for someone to make this suggestion.

Trevor winked at me. “Me and Beaner got a place we like.”

It was unnerving to realize how blind I’d been to this sort of thing all along. Trevor and Kelli’s shorthand. Their obvious intimacy. Now that the scales had fallen from my eyes, I saw it constantly. I kept having to remind myself to be happy for Kelli, that things were back to a kind of normal for her now — as normal as they could be without my mother, anyway. Trevor had told me last night after my crying jag, as I was pulling the collar of my shirt up over my puffy face and staunching my eyes with it: Don’t feel sad about then. Just be happy about now.

So that’s how I decided to feel. I would be happy I was here for Kelli now. And I would make amends to her and to Irene as best I could.

Trevor drove us out to a fish joint in Eastern Passage that he told me was a favourite of Irene’s when she didn’t want to cook and when she felt like she deserved “a treat.” Normally, I knew, my mother took care to avoid any food of the deep-fried variety, but fish and chips were her kryptonite, reminding Irene of her beach-centric childhood on Cape Breton Island. It made her think of tourists and miniature golf and ice-cream and salt-stiffened towels spread out across the picnic table to dry. Whereas Kelli liked anything involving french fries.

My sister swaggered into the restaurant, its walls festooned with buoys, plastic lobsters, and nautical ropes in various artful knots, as if she owned the place. She barrelled past the Please Wait to Be Seated sign to a table overlooking the boat-cluttered harbour, which Trevor explained to me was her favourite spot. I didn’t think the servers would mind, it being the middle of the afternoon — the place was practically deserted. A matronly waitress called a greeting to Kelli as she strode by.