I am the girl with the sweater covered in green paint - Clover, Number 2463. Stop! says the art
teacher. It’s a mountain of sweater, almost brown with hints of mustard. Hers. Last summer my
mother slipped out of the picture, no longer dipping into sleep in front of the summer fire pit, no
more lisping breath, no more guttering sighs. Her smells - ill woman, stale wool, excessive
deodorant to mask the creeping illness - lingering. A startling departure, despite me and Dad
waiting for it, waiting since before he went to jail for selling stolen goods till after his release,
from before I went to Junior High, and here I am in high school. 

​Excerpt from novella: There Has Always Been Water in the Crowsnest Basement


Skookumchuck
I arrive at my first train station not knowing how to hoop up train orders.


You stand beside the track with the paper orders inside a wooden hoop. When the train goes by, you hold up one hoop and the engineer sticks his arm out. You let go when his arm goes through the hoop. Then when the caboose goes by—same thing for the conductor, only you don’t have to aim so high. Then you go running down the track to retrieve the hoops.