The phone rang at about midnight and I made a grab for it, thinking Irene, it’s got to be Irene, and if she’s calling this late she must want to come over. But it wasn’t Irene, it was a voice from Robarts Hospital saying my mother had been mugged. Her scalp had been split open and would I come at once.

I thought for a while as I untangled my bootlaces that perhaps I should call Irene myself, but I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just left it. It was cold outside, the air thick and still, a centimeter or two of snow layered white on the sidewalk. It took a couple of tries to get the car started, a couple of minutes to clear the windshield and my mind. There was no traffic, which was just as well because I found myself going down a one-way street in the wrong direction, and even though my mother lives about as far west as you can go without leaving Toronto, I was in the hospital in fifteen minutes.