The Welcomed Intruder
My dad lazes on the burgundy suede couch as I make a weak attempt at folding my clothes and packing them in my bag. Ring-Ring-Ring, sounds the phone, my grandmother is nowhere to be seen so I decide to answer.
“Hello?” I say only to be surprised by the sound of my mom’s voice at the other end of the line.

“Hi baby! I have a surprise for you. Can I speak to your dad?” A smile spreads across my face like a contagion. The bald headed, dark chocolate man slides his butt across the love seat and reaches for the phone.

“Hello,” a deep, masculine voice says. My dad brushes his hand over his head like he’s stroking a full head of hair. The conversation lasts about ten minutes. At the end, I’m eyeing my dad, eager for him to tell me the surprise. As a ten year old, surprises really do spike my excitement. “Your mom’s friend, Jezebel, needs a place to stay for awhile so she’ll be with us. Her daughter is in Toronto for the week so she’ll be with us for the week.”

“Where does she live?” I ask, wondering why she doesn’t live in Toronto but her mom does. “She lives in North Bay; it’s just outside of Ottawa.” Why on earth would a daughter live so far from her mother? That must suck. But this news doesn’t distract me from my anticipation of meeting a new friend and getting to show off all my new toys from Christmas. It’s only a day after New Years so all my toys are still new and not worn out.

My cheeks are beginning to hurt from all the smiling, “how old is the daughter and what’s her name?” Not actually caring about her age and name, I give up on my lazy attempt at folding and start shoving my clothes in the bag. “She’s a year younger than you and her name is Cassie.” I’ll finally have someone to play with in my boring, residential neighborhood. Despite the fact that you can see my elementary school from my back yard, there are no kids on my block.


The site of my house begins to disturb my nerves. As we approach the cement steps leading into out bungalow, I begin to worry about what I will say to Cassie. I don’t know what she likes. I don’t know what she thinks is cool. I don’t know what toy to show her first. I want to run in the opposite direction of my house but my legs feel like they’re about to give out on me. When the door is opened, my father and I are welcomed by an egg nog coloured woman with black hair reaching her breasts. A smile is formed on her round face, displaying her double chin. “Hi mommy,” I say with a smile as I’m embraced in a hug. I give her a look, signaling her to lead me to our new young guest.

A girl in a red Aeropostle sweater with long brown hair sits on our jean couch. She looks native, my mom told me she is Cree. “Hey… I’m Serenity,” I say awkwardly. “Hi, I’m Cassandra but you can call me Cassie.” In front of her on the table is my new tattoo making machine. It’s a purple battery powered air brush machine for kids. My favourite gift that I was going to show her but for some unpleasant reason, it’s already out. I’m doing my best to keep a curve on my face but the fury is dragging my smile south.
“Hello, you must be Serenity,” said the woman with slight sun kissed skin with a yellow glow. She is a lot lighter than her daughter considering Cassie looks like the colour of thoroughly toasted bread.
I smile, “Yup, and you’re Jezebel?” She nods. She seems nice but looks a little bit odd for a female. If I passed her on the street, I just might confuse her for a male. Miniature, black, gelled curls sit on her head. I guess she went for the look of a man. There’s a logo on the heart of her faded black shirt that says ‘Bud Light.’ Her jeans look like my dad’s; black, wrinkled, loose and worn out at the bottom.



“Sttrrrrike,” my mom announces like a baseball commentator when I knock down all the bowling pins. I jump up and wag my butt in the ladies faces. I’m in the lead, Cass is right behind me, the old farts are behind us. A colossal of pins plummet on top of each other after Cassie’s third strike. I fake a smile in hopes to hide my embarrassment. She won one game and my mom won the other. “Good game, winning doesn’treally matter. Let’s race each other on the cars,” I suggest.

By the fourth car racing game, my mom gets us out of the bowling alley to save the little money she has left.

My goose bumps fade in relief from escaping the freezing temperatures. I race down the stairs to our open concept basement with an unfinished kitchen to the left of it. “Hey dad,” I enthusiastically shout, still hyper from the earlier competition. “Hey, how was it?” I pull up a brown chair to sit beside him. “It was so much fun! I was in the lead but lost the game. We also played air hockey and car racing games.” A forced half of a smile appears then he says, “that’s nice, where’s your mom?” I roll my eyes, irritated by his lack of interest of my day. “She and Jezebel went grocery shopping.” His black eyebrows with specks of grey squish together. “She went to the grocery store at seven?” I get up, shake my head and say “I guess so.”

It’s 9:30 and my mom still isn’t home. The grocery store is only ten minutes away walking distance. “So what do you do for fun around here?” Cassie asks. We’re sitting on the head of the couch, staring at the deserted road hidden by the dark of night.

“I don’t really do anything. Just go on the computer and play with toys.” A quick response slips out because my mind is so occupied by worries for my mom. My legs fall over the couch and my neck slides under me as I tumble onto the floor. I jump up and race for the front door. “Mom, why did you take so long?”

Both of the ladies hands are filled with multiple bags of groceries. “We had to do a lot of shopping.” When she puts the bags down, I can tell something is off about her. She seems to have more life in her. Jezebel stumbles when she puts down the bags, her and my mom exchange a little giggle.



“The science centre was so cool!” said Cassie as she zipped her suitcase.
“It was,” Cassie could sense the sadness in my voice. A sympathetic smile appeared on her face. “I just don’t want you to go. We had so much fun, bowling, science centre, cooking fake food and all the rest.” As I spoke, I attempted to avoid direct eye contact just in case it sparked my tears. Instead, I occupy myself with a ball on the floor in between a diamond shape I make with my legs.

“Don’t worry, we’ll see each other again soon,” she said as we exchanged final hugs and I watch her leave out the hard wood front door.


I just finished drawing an abstract picture of paintbrush colour strokes and I want to show my mom. I race down the stairs to have some luck finding my mom because she is not upstairs. “Whoa, Serenity, what’s the rush? You’re going to hurt yourself,” explained my dad as I tripped on the last step but caught my balance.

“Sorry, where’s mom?” He made a grunt then rolled his eyes. A feeling of resentment for him judging my mom fills my mind but I decided to say nothing.

“She went out with Jezebel again.”
My eyebrows scurry together in confusion. “But they went out every night this week,” I state, overwhelmed with frustration. Right when I’m about to give an unnecessary rant to my dad, I hear the front door upstairs open.

“Mom, why didn’t you say bye? Why did you go out again? Where’s Jezebel?” Taken back by my flood of questions, she raises her hand to inform me to pause.
“We were rushing, I forgot to. I’m sorry. I went out because I can, I wanted to,” she gave me a look that signalled to me there was no use in arguing with her.
“Fine, but where’s Jezebel?”
Her shoulders shrugged as she walked downstairs, expecting me to follow her, “she’s still at the bar.” Her body swayed as she went down the stairs. Her large, round body collapsed on the hard carpeted floor. There’s no reason to sleep downstairs anymore now that Cassie is gone but I guess mom wants to keep having a girls night.


I watch the wave of bubbly spit escape down the drain and put my toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. I slightly crack open my dad’s door, “I’m going to sleep now daddy, love you.”
“Come in here Serenity,” he uses a hand gesture. I’m worried because he used my name; formal use of my name normally means I’m in trouble. He also looks angry; his normally wrinkleless forehead is a canvas of wrinkles now. “I don’t want you sleeping downstairs with them tonight. Sleep in your own room.”

“Why not? I always sleep with them,” He sighs but in a stern voice replies, “I know, not tonight.” He is being unfair, so I continue to question him, “but why? Mom can, I want too to.”

“I don’t give a s***! You’re not sleeping downstairs,” he commanded in a roaring voice.
My jaw dropped, I stumble a step back. “Dad you swore,” my body began to shake. I felt my face get hot.

“I don’t give a s***, go sleep in your room.” With that, I headed next door to my room. My face moulded its self to my pillow in hopes of hiding my stream of tears. I cried and cried from confusion and fear. My dad has never sworn at me before, ever. Why is sleeping downstairs such a big deal? My dad knows I’m afraid of the dark, despite my age, I’m terrified of it. He knows I can’t sleep alone.

Being very cautious to avoid my dad hearing my steps, I sneak downstairs to tell my mom to come upstairs. “Mommy, I have to sleep upstairs, I don’t want to sleep alone.” She rolled onto her back, facing me instead of the television and said “alright, I’ll be up in a bit, go rest for now,” she turned onto her side before I could respond. I looked at Jezbel sitting behind my mom’s head on the computer. I lower my voice out of embarrassment, “do you promise?”


“I promise.”


My restless body fights with the sheets. My eyes are burning because I’m so tired but I can’t close my eyes. I don’t trust the darkness of my room, especially not my slightly cracked open closet door. Wondering why my mom is still not in here, it’s been two hours, I head downstairs. The lights are off but the television is on. Jezebel and my mom are sleeping. I walk up to the two bodies laying next to each other and nudge my mom’s shoulder. She makes a grunt but does nothing. I pull back the blanket off her shoulder to nudge her to see Jezebel’s hand on her shoulder. My mom made another grunt, pulled the blanket back up and with her face in the pillow said, “Jezebel stop it.”

Feeling defeated, in a low whisper I say, “I’m not Jezebel.” I shake my head and walk back upstairs. I put on my bedroom light and lay there until the morning.


It’s nine o’clock but my mom is once again, nowhere to be found. Dinner is not made so my dad quickly puts together Kraft Dinner. My dad has been pacing up and down the hall, his hands keep fidgeting. “Daddy, where’s mom?” I struggle to say through a rush of tears? He puts his shoulder around me and props me on his bed. I rest my head on his chest as he rubs my back.

“I don’t know baby.” We sit there sharing our confusion and worry. Suddenly, he pushes me off him and says “we’re going to get her.”

We walk down the abandoned street. The only few people who are walking the street can’t walk straight. The only people out at this time of night, midnight, are the drinkers and drug users. A big, bright yellow sign that says ‘Bee’s’ catches my dad’s attention. We walk up to the door and I worriedly look up the stairs. The stairwell is dark and smoky. I hear music and a low bustle of voices. “Serenity, wait down here, scream if anything happens, I’ll be right back.”


I step outside of my babysitter’s house and blink a few times to adjust my eyes to the light. My dad and I start walking in the opposite direction of our house. “Where are we going?” My dad looks sad and detached.

He sighs, “To your Koko’s. Your mom is helping Jezebel pack her things. I told her to leave today. They’re going to be in a hotel for the next few days. Your mom said she’ll be back six days from now, on Thursday.”


I watch my Koko cook dinner. Her eyes pity me. The poor daughter is stuck crying with her father because her mom ran off with a drunken woman. My blurry vision creates multiples of everything in the room. My throat hurts because it feels like I dry swallowed an enormous mega vitamin. My head aches furiously. I try to catch my breath but can’t. Each inhale is a struggle; the crying is causing me to choke. My dad and I sit there for an hour, crying and comforting each other. We eat the dinner my Koko makes, forcing smiles at the stupid jokes in commercials then we go to bed.


Downstairs, my dad and I lay next to each other. We stare at the ceiling with painful eyes. “Serenity, do you think your mom is a lesbian?” I take a deep breath. Terrified because he has finally says the word, finally making my nightmare a reality. Everything inside me screams yes but in a low whisper, I say “no she’s not,” and go to sleep.