Imagining a home

From a poignant May essay in the New York Times Magazine:

"When I was 11, my two sister and I lived with my father in an old brick building in Montreal. There was water damage on the ceilings, and the windows were broken and held together with masking tape. Going up the dark stairwell to our door after school was one of the most unpleasant feelings in the world, but going inside was worse. The apartment was ugly, tiny and filled with cockroaches. We moved there after my mother left us behind with our father, and everything in our lives felt bleak."