Twelve
Beck watched rain falling outside the window in his aunt Sylvia’s small blue kitchen. He listened to the loud, relentless percussion of drops splatting on glass panes and their muted hammering on the roof. Although she too had benefited from an inheritance, his father’s sister Sylvia worked full time in York University’s busy student aid office. She was single, never married, a slight woman with a gaunt face. The hollows under her cheekbones were so deep Beck could see her skull through her skin. When he was little she had never played with him. In her own words, she had little tolerance for foolishness or imagination. She smelled of the lemon cough drops she sucked; hard, sour candies that clicked against her teeth. Beck usually tuned his aunt Sylvia out. She had an unfortunate, n
