Cape Breton in Devotions 

francesca ekwuyasi 

 

Now, You

Sound fades.

No, it cuts out suddenly. 

All sound is cut out suddenly like a switch somewhere was flicked. Now, there is only a low-pitched buzzing, a mellow drone. A person is saying something to you; their lips move, though no sounds correspond. The person is your good friend, Hamza. He is saying something, but you no longer hear his voice, just the buzzing. And Hamza’s face is blurring before you; very quickly, it is becoming shrouded by the grey smoke that first plumed at the edges of your vision. A grey that is fast becoming denser and denser, though you blink rapidly to shake it off. And now the air seems to be leaving your lungs with no intention of returning. 

You know that you are sitting down because Hamza asked you to sit down moments before he spoke the thing that has hushed your senses. You know you are sitting on a worn and faded leather couch in the living room. You recall that all day, before Hamza’s words, there was an intense clenching in your lower belly, shards of glass in a tight fist. Earlier, you’d imagined your uterus filled with these rough and pointy pieces. You pictured them bloody and piercing through organ, muscle, skin. Now you feel nothing but a gust of cold air rushing through your chest, as though you’ve been hollowed out at the centre.

Moments before, you were a functional person; you are sure of this. But Hamza, with dark eyeliner smeared and tear-streaked, asked you to sit, and placed his hands heavy on your shoulders. 

“What’s the matter, Hamz?” you asked, your voice thin with panic. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Lo,” Hamza replied, his face crumpling at your lover’s name. “It’s Lo . . . baby, she . . .um, they found her body this morning . . .she’s, she’s—”

You had been a person just before that moment. Then, it seems, something vital and pulsing fell from between your already tenuous grasp. And now you are a concave something else. There is so much air rushing through you, and your mind is absolutely blank.

Then there’s a sound, something dragged up from unfamiliar depths, a primal and foreign howl ripping, ragged and guttural, out of you. 

And everything goes black.

 

Then, Lo

 

And behold, when you first met her, you were mid-tumble out of the grim guts of a rotten depression. You tumbled into her arms, in a poetic manner of speaking, sure, maybe, but also quite literally. You were stoned and tripped on the steps as you entered the gallery where she worked. She’d been at the door welcoming guests to the show, gesturing to a table where the exhibit handouts stood in stiff stacks of folded paper beside open bottles of white wine and small piles of cheesy hors d’oeuvres. But she caught you, partially in her arms and with a lifted knee. 

And with surprised laughter, she exclaimed, “Whoa! You okay?”

You were okay. You were impeccably high off the stickiest, most potent indica you’d smoked in a while. You felt light—as in that which illuminates, as well as lightheaded, as if your head were a helium balloon being tugged, gently, upwards. 

But you’d fallen. Many words crowded at the tip of your tongue, and you swallowed them, collected yourself, and apologized.

“Sorry,” you cleared your throat, “sorry, I tripped.”

Lo only smiled. She nodded and watched you walk away. Delayed embarrassment made you clumsy. Suddenly very aware of your legs, your gait. You’d never before so intently contemplated your limbs and the particular rhythm with which they swayed. 

The thing is, until a half-hour before you tripped through the gallery doors, you hadn’t smoked in precisely one year, four months, eleven days, fifteen hours, and forty-seven minutes. You hadn’t tasted even a drop of alcohol, eaten any meat, or had sex with anyone but yourself. All this because you’re prone to extremes; who’s to say why? Well, you are, but we’re not there yet. We’re still at the gallery, too high and self-conscious, as you seek out Hamza from among the crowd rapidly filling the small gallery. 

Hamza saw you before you saw him and whistled to snatch your attention. You found him waving frantically from the corner of the room. Propped between him and the wall was his cello, Jezebel, black and glossy, reflecting the warm gallery lights. 

“I saw that,” he said when you finally ambled towards the stage. “I want some of whatever you’re smoking as soon as this shitshow is done.”

Then he glided onto the stage and gave an astonishing performance while a trio of dancers dressed in shredded swaths of grey gauze wove through the audience, swaying and contorting their limbs as though possessed by spirits.  

Afterwards, you smoked Hamza up in the cool evening breeze of the gallery courtyard. Late summer in Halifax, only moments before proper autumn, and all that dense humidity had given way to lighter air and relief from stinging insects. 

“Government weed?” Hamza asked.

“No,” you said. “My neighbour, she’s generous.”

“For real? That sweet old girl?” He laughed, “Very neighbourly.”

“I know. She grows it for her husband. I think he’s dying, this helps,” you shrugged. “Anyway, Hamz, that was amazing.”

“Yeah?” He frowned slightly. “I’m not into the dancers. The choreographer has a singular vision,” he rolled his eyes. “We were not on the same page.” 

The choreographer, Helena, was your mutual friend, so Hamza was trying to be respectful, though he loathed it. You laughed at this, rested a hand on his leather-clad shoulder and said,

“As an audience member, I found it beautiful.”

“You’re just saying that because you love me.”

“Yes, I love you, and your show was beautiful.”

The small garden steadily filled with folks for its traditional post-show bonfire. You and Hamza were giggling in a dense cloud of potent smoke, when Lo joined you in the corner of the courtyard.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “I just wanted to say congratulations; that was great.”

You noticed the melodious clip of her accent and wondered where she was from. 

Hamza shrugged, “Eh, it was fine.”

“No, it was brilliant!” you insisted, then turned to Lo and added, “He gets like this after every show.”

Hamza shot daggers at you. “I just feel a way about the ‘movement piece,’” manicured fingers curved in air quotes. 

“Oh yeah?” Lo asked.

“Yeah, it wasn’t—pardon me,” he paused to retrieve his phone from his back pocket, rolled his eyes, and said, “Sorry, my boyfriend is calling to apologize for not being here.” Then, he walked away with the phone pressed to his ear. 

“Well,” you smiled weakly, feeling sheepish, trying not to preoccupy yourself with what Lo might have thought of you. You held the joint toward her brows raised.

She smiled and kept her gaze steady on your face, “Sure.”

She took the joint from you, her fingers lingered against yours too long to go unnoticed. 

Watching her, she seemed to generate her own atmosphere. You were high as fuck, yes, but the quality of the air around her seemed rarefied, separate from everything else, and when she looked at you, you, too, became enveloped in that special realm. 

“Oh, thank you for breaking my fall earlier.”

She smiled, nodded, then asked, after a long drag and slow exhale. “You’re an artist?”

You shook your head, “No, I’m a mathematician.”

“A magician?”

You laughed, delight fluttering shallow in your chest, “A mathematician.”

“Is there a difference?” 

And with that question, you were taken. 

Then she asked, with a lowered gaze, “I don’t know your situation, but if it allows, I’d love to take you out for a coffee or something,”

You must have looked startled because that’s how you felt. You blinked rapidly to clear your vision, and an embarrassed, high-pitched giggle escaped you.

“Wow,” you shook your head, feeling dopey. “Sorry, I haven’t . . . um, are you flirting with me?”

“I mean,” Lo laughed, “I’m trying to, yeah,”

“Right, you’re stunning,” you shook your head, mortified by your bluntness. “Yeah, I’d love to. Sorry, I haven’t—yes, I’d love to grab a coffee with you.”

Lo looked like she was trying not to laugh, the corners of her brown eyes crinkling gently with amusement. 

 

Now, Sade 

 

“I’m so sorry you’re sad,” Sade says to you now, “and I know it may be too soon, but Lo was an asshole.”

You give her a wounded look and say nothing. You are at the threshold of a pale blue house just off the Cabot Trail in Baddeck, Cape Breton. 

It’s been nearly six months since Lo’s passing. You’ve taken an indefinite mental health leave from work because even after one week of bereavement leave, you’d spent most of your work hours crying in your glass cube of an office. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Sade says, “I don’t lie.”

Indeed, Sade doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t mean she can’t temper her truths with some measure of kindness. Also, there’s a matter of perspective; this is what you try to express next.

“You just didn’t . . .” you start to say.

“Know her like you do?” Sade finishes your sentence with a smirk. You want to push her off the steps onto the gravel drive, but you’re too sad and tired to entertain your intrusive impulses or even to find the humour in them. 

“I guess you’re right; she deserved to die because she was a shitty partner,” you say weakly. Shamelessly wielding your sense of self-pity because you seem to have nothing else at your disposal. 

“Wow,” Sade replies, handing you a cardboard box of produce with vibrant green carrot tops and a bouquet of deep purple kale sticking out. “I’m not saying that at all.” 

You bring the box inside and place it on the floor beside your bags, a duffle of clothes and toiletries and a canvas tote of books. 

“What are you saying then? It’s time to stop being sad?”

“Not really,” she says. “I’m going to park the car, then we can continue this argument.” She heads down the steps and into her green Honda. 

You lean against the wooden doorframe. You reach into your pocket for a pack of cigarettes and set one alight. You exhale the smoke in relief just as Sade returns. She sits on the top step, and you join her. It’s early evening, and the clear blue sky slowly pinks above you. The balmy breeze feels good against your skin. You and Sade are silent for as long as it takes to burn through the cigarette. 

“It’s nice here,” she says without looking at you.

“It really is. Thank you for the hook-up,” you say of the pet-sitting gig that has brought you here. You like the dog, a gentle, elderly duck tolling retriever named Cloud, but it’s the remoteness of the house that drew you. 

“Anytime,” she says, then turning to look at you, adds, “I’m really very sorry about Lo.”

“I know,” you meet her gaze.

“You tend to romanticize everything,” she says, and you laugh gently. “I bet you’re already nostalgic for this moment, even as we’re living it,” she pokes you.

“Maybe,” you laugh louder now.

“Anyway, asshole or not, Lo was important to you, and I’m sorry she’s gone.”

“Me too,” you nod.

For dinner, Sade makes a large pot of chicken curry, enough so that you have a couple days of leftovers. Sitting at the counter, you roll a joint while she rinses three cups of jasmine rice and regales you with work gossip. 

From the large window, you see the sky, mountains, and a sparkling stream outside. The sun is setting, and everything is devastating. You exhale loudly.

“You okay?” Sade asks.

“Yeah,” you shake your head, “sorry, it’s so beautiful.” 

She turns to look out the window to see what you’re seeing. “That’s fucked up,” she smiles. “Are you going to manage by yourself?”

“I will,” you hand her the joint and light it as she inhales. “I’ll have visitors, so I won’t be by myself all the time.”

You take a drag of the joint, hold the smoke in for a moment, and feel your chest loosen as you exhale.

 

Then, Cedar

 

“Like a cliché, you’ll feel like the only person in the world at first,” Cedar said to you that day, her soft voice barely audible in the loud bar. You were in Montreal to see Tinariwen play at the Olympia. You’d gotten tickets for you and Lo, but she’d cancelled at the last minute, citing a vague work deadline as you packed for the trip. So you’d gone with Hamza, who was eager to go away for a weekend. Hamza invited his old friends from his uni days in McGill—Cedar, Adamma, and Marie Elise—and you all went for drinks before the concert. Hamza, Adamma, and Marie Elise stepped out to smoke for just about a minute before Cedar asked: “I hear you’re with Lo?”

You nodded, confused by her tone, which you couldn’t immediately identify: “Yeah, I am.”

“A long time?”

You shook your head. “Long for me. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve known of her a while.”

“Oh yeah?” you asked. “How?”

That’s when she said, “Like a cliché, you’ll feel like the only person in the world at first.”

“At first?” you asked, laughing. But she didn’t laugh with you. She licked her lips and looked like she was considering something dire.

“I feel I should warn you,” she said finally.

“What about?”

“Listen,” she tucked a loose curl of dark hair behind her ear, “I don’t want to overstep.”

“You’ve already begun,” you replied, “might as well carry on.”

“Lo is a vampire,” she said with a straight face. You waited for her to elaborate further, but she didn’t.

“Like . . . bloodthirsty?” you asked to clarify, trying not to laugh though your throat was beginning to tighten.

“No, well, maybe,” she shrugged. “But she has a long history of chewing people up and spitting them out.”

“Please, enough with the metaphors. What are you saying?”

“I’m upsetting you.”

“Yes, but please continue.”

“She’s dated a few people I know, okay, and it always started and ended the same.”

“Which is?”

“First, you’ll feel like the sun is shining just for you,” she said. “That’s how my friend, Saida, described it.”

“And then?”

“And then, as Alana told me, slowly, she starts to pick at you. Bit by bit. Then—and this is what Uche said about it—she’ll start to disappear slowly. And when you notice, you’ll think it’s your fault, and you’ll start to—”

“Excuse me,” you got up abruptly and headed for the bathroom. You didn’t need to hear the rest of what Cedar had to say because you already knew. You were already, at that point, grasping for Lo’s shadow. Her last-minute cancellation was the most recent of the many ways she was already fading. 

Locked in the bathroom stall, you took out your phone and called Lo. She didn’t pick up, so you sent a text: You know someone named Cedar?

Ellipsis blinked on your screen, then stopped. No reply. You scrolled through your text conversations so many months back when none of your messages went unacknowledged. You emerged from the bathroom to find Hamza waiting for you. 

“I’m sorry about Cedar,” he said, squeezing your hand. 

Cedar was where you left her, rolling her eyes at something Adamma was saying to her. 

“Is she right?” You asked him.

“Babe,” he shook his head, “I don’t know, only you can really know.”

“But did you hear about Lo before?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“What do you think now though?”

“I mean,” he shrugged, “she’s been acting kind of fucked, but like, relationships can be complicated, right?”

“I don’t think I should be confused about whether my lover likes me, though.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t think that should be confusing. . .”

“And when I’ve tried to talk about it, she flips it, like I’m being unreasonable or like my needs are insurmountable or whatever.”

“She said that?”

“Well, she used the word insurmountable, yeah,”

“Wait, babe, that’s fucked.”

“I don’t know, maybe I’m reading into things.”

“I don’t think you are reading in—”

Marie Elise started to wave you two over, pointing to her watch. 

“I think we have to go,” you said.

“Let’s keep talking about this, though,” Hamza replied, “Okay?”

You nodded.

On the walk to the Olympia, you checked your phone every few minutes, a compulsive tic to see if Lo had responded to your message or called you back. Hamza noticed and snatched your phone away from you, saying: “You’ll get it back after the show. Be here now.” 

You didn’t protest, only shrugged and slipped your arm into his. Your mood had soured, and as much as you wanted to blame Cedar, you knew better. She’d tried to apologize as you left the bar, but you waved it away, saying, “All good,” and refused to look her in the face for the rest of the evening. 

Tinariwen’s sultry desert blues eased your mind for a time. You almost didn’t think about Lo or the hollow sensation flexing up and down your insides. You closed your eyes and danced, letting the music envelop you. You swayed from side to side, holding Hamza in your arms.

Back at the hotel, when Hamza was asleep, you fished your phone from his pocket and saw that Lo had finally texted you back.

Cedar in Montreal? I think I might have gone out with one of her friends way back when. 

Not quite my cup of tea, a bit dramatic and manipulative for my liking. 

A vindictive bitch, actually.

 

Before, Zainab

 

You learned, through Facebook, that your mother, Zainab, had died one year, four months, eleven days, fifteen hours, and forty-seven minutes before you met Lo.

You hadn’t spoken to your mother in fourteen years since the day you began the twenty-eight-hour trip from Lagos to St. John’s, Newfoundland. Neither of you said a word as you clutched your passport and plane ticket and walked slowly through the rowdy airport to board the first of three flights that would eventually land you at Memorial University. You received the Arjun-Harit Endowed Scholarship in Mathematics, which would cover your tuition and housing for the four years of your undergraduate degree, provided you maintained a GPA of 3.75. Your mother didn’t congratulate you when you got the news, nor did her husband, Augustin. She wrapped small plastic bags of ground crayfish, yaji, Cameroonian pepper, alligator pepper, iru, and garri in tight bundles with newspaper and tape so that none of the spices would leak inside your suitcase and stink up your clothes. She followed you to the airport and stood silently in the disorderly queue as you waited to have your travel documents checked, drop off your suitcase, and pick up your ticket. And when it was time to head through customs, she hugged you, your bodies barely touching, and turned around to leave before you could say anything, so you knew she was still angry with you.

After some years of silence, in your senior year, she sent you a message on Facebook. Attached to the message was a picture of you with Maha, your girlfriend at the time; you were smiling at the camera, and Maha’s lips were pressed against your cheek. The caption was something lovely, marking a six-month anniversary. It was from Maha’s profile; your mother had found it and sent it to you with the message: So this is the rubbish you’re doing in Canada?

You read the message, a tight fist in your throat. You didn’t respond. A week later, you ended things with Maha.

In the years to follow, your mother would send many more messages, unhindered by your lack of response. They ranged from venomous—You useless ingrate, all you’ve brought into my life is shame. Sebi, one day you, too, will have a child? Walahi, she will show you the same pepper you’ve shown me.

To desperate—Only God knows why he blessed me with only one child. If I had others, it would have been better. Even none, no child at all, would be better than this.

To cloying—I’ve been praying for you, my dear daughter. May God guide and protect you.

When she sent the message telling you that Augustin had died from complications after a sudden stroke, you cackled like a cartoon witch. By then, you had moved to Halifax to complete your master’s at Dalhousie University. You were at the library and a staff member approached your desk, finger held up to her lips, asking you to keep the noise down. You apologized, attempting to stifle your laughter, and then, without warning, the elation in your chest shifted to something pitch black and heavy, and you couldn’t keep yourself from sobbing, wet hiccupping sounds bubbling out of you. Quickly, you packed your things and rushed out of the library, weeping openly as you trudged through the snow.

After that, your mother started asking you for help. Money was already tight and without Augustin’s income, things got even harder. You knew this, so while you never responded to her messages, you sent her money occasionally. And when you got a full-time job, you started sending her more money, more consistently. 

Her messages continued their cycle. 

Money isn’t everything, I hope you know. Other children call their parents, they visit, they even help them travel abroad. 

Thank you very much, my dear daughter. May God continue to bless and provide for you. 

And then they stopped altogether. 

You looked on her profile wall and saw posts of shock and condolences. 

Gone too soon. So deeply saddened. Rest in Peace. Rest in Power. 

The words blurred into a single stream of disbelief.

It took a terribly slow dragging moment for you to comprehend the reality of those words. And when understanding finally dawned, everything around you vanished. You vanished. When you returned to your body, there was silence, punctuated only by the quiet hum of your damaged surroundings. Your computer screen was a spiderweb of cracks, on the floor lay the remnants of your coffee mug, shattered beside the upturned desk, papers strewn about. 

You opened your mouth and screamed. 

 

Then, Lo

 

A few weeks before Lo’s accidental overdose from fentanyl-laced coke, Monika, a friend of Hamza’s, read your tarot cards at a party. You were sat in a circle on the living room floor with a handful of other mildly intoxicated partygoers. Monika asked you to shuffle the cards from a worn Rider-Waite deck.

“Now,” she said, her voice the calm of someone used to holding court at parties. “Think of a situation or a question, anything you want Spirit to guide you on.” She nodded as she spoke, her thick curtain of dark locs swaying.

“When you’re clear on your question,” she continued, “pick three cards and lay them face down.”

You obeyed, though you weren’t as clear on your question as Monika had suggested. You shuffled the deck, but your thoughts scattered. You wanted to know how to make things good with Lo again, but even trying to form that thought felt like swallowing glass, humiliating. You thought of your mother. Without meaning to, you glanced at Lo before picking your cards. She was cross-legged, sipping from her wine glass, and saw, at the crewneck of her gray sweatshirt, the splotchy edges of a hickey. It wasn’t from you. You weren’t sure who it was from because you couldn’t ask without being manipulative. Apparently, she had always been polyamorous, and you would have known that if you’d listened better. And when, during the conversation she’d initiated about wanting to see other people, you’d expressed needing some reassurance and specifics about what it would look like, that was incredibly narrow-minded and actually pretty controlling of you — her words that stung though you’d barely let yourself flinch. And yet still, when you told her—carefully, quietly—that you weren’t sure if being poly in this way worked for you, she’d started crying. Silent tears. A look of such hurt that made you certain you were a monster, she hadn’t realized she was so disposable to you, that your commitment to the relationship was so conditional.

Seeing the hickey sent your stomach twisting. You were nauseous and wanted to cry. You sipped your mezcal soda and placed three cards face down on the carpet.

Monika flipped the first card, a Nine of Swords.

“Ah,” she began, her tone shifting to something softer. “Are you feeling stu—”

“Oh god,” Lo scoffed, cutting her off, “please don’t fuel her victim complex.”

The circle went silent. A flush of heat, your throat tightened, you got up quietly.

“Oh, come on,” Lo said, “I was joking; it was a joke.”

But you didn’t turn around. You ambled your way through the crowded kitchen to the back deck and sat on the steps leading down.

“Here,” Wren said, tapping your shoulder and handing you a cigarette; you hadn’t noticed them follow you.

“Thanks,” you said as they sat next to you and lit it. You shared the cigarette in silence. You turned to face them to ask how they were doing, but when you saw the look of puzzlement and empathy on their face, you shook your head and said, “I know.”

 

When you think about Lo these days, you choose to remember your favourite things about her. The things that kept you by her side. You list them out in your journal:

She had a wild sense of humour.

I loved the way we fucked.

She made me feel like the single most important thing in her life—when she wanted to.

I loved the way her mind worked, could’ve listened to her stories forever

She was a gifted artist, I loved watching her work.

She reminded me of my mother.

She could be so kind. 

She chose me.

You didn’t go to her funeral because, even after over three years of being together, her family didn’t know who you were. 

 

Before, Zainab

 

You don’t remember when your father left. It didn’t make much of a difference. You and your mother, Zainab, were tight. She wasn’t like any other mothers you knew at church or your friends’ mothers from school. For one thing, she was probably a decade younger than the others, and she treated you as if she liked you. As if she was interested in what you had to say. As a child, you were extremely shy, but talkative with your mother. And she encouraged it, asked you to tell her stories of your day at school, at lessons, at bible study. There were men, but they didn’t stick around long or affect your life in any significant way if they did. One of the men owned a small fleet of Okadas and gifted your mother a refurbished old motorcycle to help make her life easier; this was before they were banned. You don’t remember his name anymore, but you remember that he was kind. You loved it when Zainab picked you up from school on the bike; you loved the rush of air, the blur of colours and sounds, and the way you could feel her chest thumping with exhilaration. She would sometimes bring you to her shop after school and ask you to sort out her customers’ change, bragging, “My pikin be like calculator.”

When Augustin started coming around, you were about fourteen. He stayed. Your mother changed. It was slow at first; she got quieter and started asking the same of you. She sold the bike, claiming it wasn’t safe anymore. But you wondered if Augustin didn’t like how people waved at her when she rode past, her loud laughter catching on the wind. And when he started coming into your room at night, that, too, was slow at first—the first few times he just laid next to you, breathing heavily.

You desperately wanted to tell your mother, but somehow, you were never alone together. And the few slippery moments you caught her on her own, she was short-tempered, snippy, she wouldn’t look at you.

You rehearsed the words every night, whispering them into your pillow though they felt thick and muddy in your chest, grotesque on your tongue, but you knew—just knew—that once she heard, she’d take you into her arms and send him away.

She didn’t.

When you finally cobbled the words, somehow dragged them out from an impossible place, sobbing, “He comes into my room when you’re asleep at night,” she looked at you as if you’d doused her in acid. Then she slapped you—hard, open-palmed—and grabbed your face, twisting your lips in her fist.

“Liar!” she spat at you, “shut up your mouth, you liar!”

A few nights after that, she came into your room and sat on the edge of your bed. You pretended to be asleep—that was how you’d survived all the other nights. You wanted to sit up when you saw that it was her, but you didn’t. From your narrowly parted eyelids, you saw her hand hover over the thin ankara covering you, saw her pull away. She left without saying a word.

 

Now, Wren and Dumpling

 

Six weeks into your time in Cape Breton, Wren calls to check on you. When you chuckle dryly in reply to their question, they understand.

“Tell me more.” 

Wailing sirens, car honks, the general din of traffic filter through their headphones; you imagine they are out for a walk with Dumpling, their recently inherited pitbull. You want to ask about this. Utterly bored with yourself, you want to disappear into someone else’s stories. 

You start to say that you are fine, but the lie catches in your throat. Embarrassment a warm rush in your face and neck. Surely, surely emotions cannot actually be unbearable; surely it is impossible to drown in abstract notions of grief and regret. But here you are, struggling to breathe. You attempt to lie again: another catch, another choke.

“Tell me the truth,” Wren says.

“I’m in pain, Wren,” you say finally, sobbing. “I’m falling fast, and I can’t catch myself.”

“I can drive down tomorrow,” they reply, “I’ll come be with you.”

 

You, Wren, and the dogs go on a long hike along the Aspy Fault. There are rugged sections along the meandering trail, some short climbs where the dogs ascend in graceful jumps while you and Wren scramble up, laughing. The four of you collapse at the end of the trail. You are hushed in awe at the view, rolling green hills fading into the misty distance. A sea of emerald stretching as far as you can see. The air heavy with moisture, clinging to the valleys and softening the jagged contours of the land.

Wren turns to you and asks, “Do you miss her?”

You don’t know if they mean your mother or Lo. The answer is the same. “Yes.”

francesca ekwuyasi is a storyteller and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria. Her debut novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread (2020), was a finalist for multiple awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award. She co-authored Curious Sounds (2023), and her writing appears in GUTS Magazine, the Ex-Puritan, and more.

Kelly Bastow is an illustrator and comic artist from Conception Bay South. She uses ink and watercolors to create her images, which often feature women, mythical creatures, and landscapes.