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crazy good. I wouldn’t play a pathetic 24 or even 36, I would play 56 cards, a feat that had been attempted only once — by a drunk guy who had wandered into the bingo hall, bought a bunch of cards and then passed out before the first game started.
    I would be different. I would be a prodigy. People would speak of my quick hands, my perfect eyesight and my luck — oh yes, my luck would be legendary.
    â€œYou’re missing numbers again!”
    Mom’s annoyed tone jerked me out of my reverie.
    â€œGo on, you’re fired.” She jerked her head in direction of the door.
    â€œReally?’
    I tucked my Cheezies into my pocket and headed outside into the night deciding that winning was something that happened to everyone, even the unlucky and sometimes, when you needed it the most.

A W EIGHTY M ATTER
    E VERY NIGHT AT FIVE THIRTY, OUR FAMILY met around the dinner table. Dinnertime was orderly: we each owned a chair at the table and there could be no squatters. I sat to the right of Celeste, my younger sister, and to the left of Dad. Celeste refused to accept her seat in life. She and I had an ongoing rivalry about who was Dad’s best girl so she frequently attempted to steal my chair. Every time Celeste tried, Mom firmly told her to sit in her own damn chair.
    â€œMom, the chairs don’t have names on them!” Celeste argued. “Anybody should be able to sit anywhere. After all, isn’t this a free country?”
    An argument based on Canada’s principles of peace, order and choice of chairs wouldn’t work on Mom who had never voted in her life.
    As Celeste grudgingly moved, I plopped down into my chair and delivered a pinch to her arm to acknowledge that I did not appreciate her attempted coup d’état. I found it annoying that she refused to give up because it meant that I couldn’t give up. I could never miss a meal because then Celeste would take my chair and smile up adoringly at our dad. Fortunately my appetite, never, ever, waned. I could have the bubonic plague and I’d still drag my boil-ridden carcass to the table.
    Mealtimes were about eating and Mom liked to keep it that way: “No laughing, no singing, no fighting while you’re eating, or else you’ll get an ulcer.”
    â€œWhat’s an ulcer?”
    â€œShut up or you’ll get one.”
    Her rules never stopped us from annoying one another from across the table. “Mom, David won’t stop whistling.”
    â€œI’ll stop whistling when she stops snapping her fingers,” David said.
    â€œThen I’m gonna click my tongue. How do you like that?”
    â€œThen it’s time for pig eating noises.” David was really good at pig eating noises.
    â€œI’m getting an ulcer just listening to you all! Art, do something,” Mom said.
    Dad had gone to his happy place: a place where there was no shortage of gravy, where the TV was on and tuned into a hockey game, where a man could eat his pork chops in peace.
    Another one of Mom’s rules was that we had to finish everything on our plate. If you took something, you had to eat it. In Africa, India and even in some other houses on the reserve, there was a food shortage and any decline in our appetites would make it worse.
    â€œIf we don’t finish our food, doesn’t that mean more food goes to other people?” I asked her once.
    â€œNo, because we’re gonna just throw it out to the dogs.”
    This prompted a glance out the window at the dogs who sat on our verandah, their tongues hanging out of our mouths waiting for the scraps that were promised to them.
    I had no issues with the plate-polishing rule. With fourteen hands reaching for food at the same time, I was lucky if I got seconds. In our house, leftovers were a quaint idea, something you might see on TV. The cherub-faced TV kids groaned when their mom put a casserole dish on the table, “Not leftovers, again!” At our