Quin Harris

We lived in the oldest house on Oak Street. It was smaller than all the other houses, but it was older. I thought that meant we had something, were holding onto a piece of history that would carry us through it all. What it really meant was that my great grandfather had stolen land from his business partner and with it his curses. My father was a gambler and lost everything in big bets over a rough decade shortly before I was born. To pay off the debts he sold parcels of the land. I doubt the curse transferred to any of them because all their houses were bigger.

Growing up I never noticed there was a divide in my family. They were on one side and I was on the another. My grandfather was on a third. My auntie Pauline was alone in her ways, except for her three daughters, who were exactly like her. And there was my cousin, who was only cousin because he came to all the family gatherings he could to eat some food, but only lived next door to me. Bret was his name, he had his own ideas as well, which seemed to be very similar to my father. I guess you could say that there is not really a divide, but we're more like a circle split up into many pieces. You should probably say we're like a pie, or maybe a cake, that's be cut up and given out to the guests of a party, who are all very different and set in their ways.