When I let myself in through the front door at The Bay View (strictly speaking, it's just Moira's house but it feels strange to admit that to myself), the house smells like burning.

"Moira?" I call out. I barley know the woman but I don't want her to be hurt.

"In the kitchen!" she yells back.

The kitchen is still tinted grey from the smoke. Moira has managed to clear most of it but opening the windows but some still lingers. The room reeks. Travis, the cat, hides his face under his paws when he comes in as if to say you should have stayed out there.

"What happened in here?" I ask, covering my nose with my hand to stop myself breathing in the smoke. I come back from one chaotic kitchen – albeit a smoke-free one – to another.

"I was making cake," Moira answers like it should be obvious.

I laugh a little and slip off my sandals. I have to remember to take then back to my room; I don't want to start the Moira habit of kicking them off just anywhere. "I'm not sure cake is supposed to look like that," I say, waving my hands in the air and gesturing to the cloud of smoke that still lingers.

Moira sighs, a little sadly but with some humour behind it. "I was never good at things like this," she says, "That was always Rebecca's job." She doesn't explain who Rebecca is but her eyes flit to the picture of her with the blonde woman that hangs on the wall. I don't ask her about it, figuring that she would tell me if she felt it was appropriate.

"Well come on," I say, making my way over the sink to wash my hands. "We can still have cake."

We spend the next hour measuring flour, beating eggs, whipping icing sugar into butter-cream and licking the frosting. Moira's laugh fills up the whole kitchen. I wonder what her story is, how she ended up living alone in this rundown house with only a cat for company. I know she must be lonely. In the time I have been here, her phone hasn't rung even once and the only mail she seems to get is flyers from the local fast food places and leaflets encouraging her to join the Church. She doesn't seem to have any friends or neighbours that pop their heads over the fence to say hello. I know what living alone feels like and I wouldn't wish it on anybody.

I hope, while I watch her put the cake mix into the mould, that she feels glad for my company. I feel glad for hers.

We sip on homemade lemonade – the one thing Moira makes perfectly – while sitting at the breakfast table. Travis seems a lot more content now that the smoke has cleared and purrs in Moira's lap. A soft song plays on the radio, the words indistinguishable but soothing at the same time.

"What are you doing after this summer, Sally?" Moira asks me gently.

If we are going to live together, I may as well tell her. "I don't know," I admit. "Get a new job? I want to enrol at some night classes." She looks both surprised and interested at that so I go on. "I, uh, I want to be a writer someday. I've loved books ever since I can remember, much more than people. I used to live in them. I would swear I saw the fantastical creatures from them in real life: Cyclops in the supermarket, a Minotaur in the subway, a Nemean lion at the zoo. It used to drive my uncle crazy when I told him so I started writing down what I saw. Or thought I saw. But when he got sick...well, I gave up everything, really. I want to go back to it somehow. I want to write."

Moira looks at me. I think the look in her eyes is respect. "You should do it, Sally," she says. She sounds sincere, not like a guidance councillor making empty suggestions. "It's a wonderful thing to want to create something. All the best people make things. Sure, someone needs to do things – we need doctors to fix our broken bones, we need bankers to keep track of our money. But we need more people in the world that make things. We need painters, writers and activists to make pictures and stories and cause that make us feel. It's what makes us human. Having an imagination is a wonderful thing. It makes you different. If you're lucky enough to be different, Sally, don't run from it. Embrace it. Some people will laugh at you because you're not the same as them but you gotta laugh back, kid. You laugh right back them because they're all the same. My sister, Rebecca, the woman in that picture, told me that if you want your life to mean something, you're going to have to live it yourself, and there's no point in living the same way they do. I remember it every day. You should too."

I feel a lump grow in my throat. Moira squeezes my hand and I squeeze back. I don't think I will ever forget what she said.