Striking Out by Alison Gordon Read Free Book Online

which he’d been shot, a school photo in colour of the dead teenager, head-and-shoulder shots of Andy and Jim in uniform.
    A sidebar quoted Reverend Josiah Brand, head of the Coalition Against Racist Policing. According to him, guess what? Jim West is a brutal racist. The chief of police declined comment until after the investigation was complete. The demonstration was scheduled for two o’clock at police headquarters.
    “I don’t know, Elwy,” I said to the cat, who was trying to sit on the newspaper. “It just doesn’t seem fair.”
    I took him into the bedroom, closed the blinds, stripped off yesterday’s clothes, and crawled into bed. Elwy curled up on Andy’s pillow and purred me to sleep.
    I woke up four hours later, barely refreshed. Hunger got me out of bed. I had a bowl of cereal, took a quick shower, and headed back to the hospital.
    I walked out to Broadview and caught the Dundas streetcar by the park full of playing children. I wanted to avoid the hospital parking lot. You can get a private room for a cheaper hourly rate. Besides, I like streetcars. They’re more like amusement rides than public transport. People look lively and happy riding them. In the subway, they look like they’re on the way to their own funerals. I felt happy, too. It was a beautiful day in my favourite city, and Andy was going to be fine.
    I got off at University Avenue, a wide boulevard lined with pretension, the grand stone buildings housing insurance companies and private clubs wrestling for space with the glass and granite skyscrapers of modern architectural folly.
    The Toronto Hospital is in the middle of medical row: across the avenue from Mount Sinai, and next to the Hospital for Sick Children. It fronts the avenue for a block of ivy-covered brick. The modern wings are tucked in behind. I bought flowers from a sidewalk vendor and went in.
    They told me at the front desk that Andy had been moved from Intensive Care up to the seventh floor of the newest wing. I found him in something called the step-down room, the intermediate stage for post-operative chest cases. It was a big improvement, a large and sunny ward with six beds and a nurse’s desk. He was also down to one intravenous tube and two drains, the catheter and the one from his chest to the pump on the floor. His mother sat by the bad, chatting cheerfully with the nurse.
    Mrs. Renwick is a tiny woman in her seventies, with striking features, her grey hair pulled into a high bun. She wears makeup, and dresses in bright, stylish clothes. I like her, even though she’s nothing like anything I ever want to be, but I don’t really know her. Usually, when Andy and I go see them on holidays and so on, we play euchre, which takes the place of conversation. She and her husband, Phil, are always warm, but treat me as if I was some sort of exotic bird that’s just flown in.
    She got up when I arrived and kissed the air by my right cheek. Andy was asleep.
    “He was awake earlier and very chipper,” she said. “He’s going to be fine. Thank the Lord.”
    “Where’s Phil?”
    “Oh, I sent him home. He doesn’t want to be hanging around the hospital. He’ll come back and get me in a few days.”
    “You’re welcome to stay at our place.”
    “That’s kind, dear, but I’ve made other arrangements. I’m staying with my old neighbour Mrs. Katz. I haven’t seen her for a year now, since she lost her husband, and we’ve got some catching up to do.”
    She picked up her purse.
    “I think perhaps now that you’re here, I’ll just go get settled in, and put my feet up for a bit. I’ll come back later on and spell you off.”
    Before she could leave, Dr. Griffith came in, trailed by a platoon of residents, interns, students, and nurses. I introduced him to Andy’s mum.
    “We’ll have him up tomorrow,” he told her, “and he can probably move into a regular room the next day.”
    “Will that awful tube come out then, so he can walk around?” asked his