Words By Whittall

I can’t believe I’m related to her. I can’t believe she used to be my best friend. I can’t believe that Nana is still controlling us from the grave. Kathy – It’s Katherine now please! – is my cousin but Nana had to explain that to us. We believed and acted like twin sisters whenever we were in the same place, which was every summer at Nana’s cottage down the road from Sandbanks. Races to the end of the dock, melting sneakers on the bricks by the fire, singing along to Uncle Mike playing Mama’s Got a Squeeze Box on his guitar. “What’s a squeeze box? What’s a squeeze box?” we’d shout. Mike would say it was an accordion, but he’d laugh in a way that made us think he was lying, so we’d ask again every time he played the song.  We might have felt we were missing something about the squeeze box but never about each other.  We’d hunt and hide treasures: odd-coloured rocks, a robin’s feather, the perfect piece of driftwood. We told each other stories in our own language. We stayed awake