I discovered I was allergic to blonds far too late. One in particular took me to Vancouver; the first place I’d felt at home since university. While there I took an Amtrak to Seattle to visit my older brother, following the Pacific coast under a full moon. When I arrived we hugged awkwardly. “There’s no easy way to say this,” he said, and told me our uncle was dead. Cancer. We spent the night sitting on his porch drinking beer and smoking cigarettes like two kids from a John Hughes movie, sharing memories of the man who’d shaped our childhood.
