It is Saturday, 5:30. I am at Union Station, with cello, stand, bag of music. My brother is there too. In fifteen minutes we need to be at Harbourfront for a gig.
It is hard to negotiate the subway with a cello, and I stop to adjust my grip. Out of nowhere appears a woman. She is overweight, haggard, hard to put an age on her because somehow you know she looks prematurely old. A First Nations woman. She is disoriented, confused.
"Which train to Sick Kids' Hospital?" she asks me.
"Uhh..." I haven't been there since I was young enough to be driven. "Erik, where is it again? Yonge line or University?"
"University. The station just south of Museum. What's it called again? Or you can get off at St. Patrick and go north."
I gesture towards the University line, then stop, frozen. The raw desperation on her face. The need to tell someone.
"My baby broke his neck," she says. "Just one year old. Just a year. Had his birthday last month."
Beams of light appear and lengthen in the subway tunnel.
"He's so young. Why does something like this happen to someone so young?" Her voice, her eyes are pleading.
I manage to stutter out a hollow "I'm so sorry." The subway is here, and she blinks and stumbles towards it. She needs something, someone. I want to go with her to the hospital, but I can't bail on my gig. She gets on, the doors close.
Erik and I walk away. For a long time we say nothing. What is there to say?
