But then. She had access to the backyard, and also the front porch, where she spent most evenings when the weather was warm; a bottle of Labatt’s and a book, or the radio, or the mayhem and spray of a hot Toronto thunderstorm. Also, Mel lived right around the corner, that was good, and the streetcar stopped just in front of the house. Handy.

Nora sat on the toilet in the airless bathroom and rolled her neck, eyes closed. Waking up slowly, sweetly. July that year had been hot, but August was hotter. It was humid and stifling. Toronto heat moved in cycles, building upon itself until the lake pushed a storm across the city, only to begin the cycle again. They were in a heatwave now. It had been strangling the city since the middle of July and Toronto was thirsty. Leaves sagged from the trees and the grass in the parks had crisped to a yellow-brown. Flowers in hanging baskets drooped like mourners and people moved languidly, sweating after their morning showers.

Toronto’s civic staff had been threatening to strike all summer. The talk that monopolized the waiting room in the dental office was all about rats and raccoons and squirrels. Three summers before, so Nora learned at work, the civic staff were on strike for two months, and the urban wildlife feasted and procreated on the garbage that piled up into banks that lined the streets. Weeds and grass grew thigh-high in the parks, and the gutters swam with plastic and greasy paper and empty cans. Rats everywhere. The city looked post-apocalyptic.

Nora pulled toilet paper from the roll. Still sleep-numb, she stared at the wall, painted a glossy cream. A water stain in the sink. A hardened knob of toothpaste in the bottom corner of the mirror.

Did she still think about the river? Did she think about the tall firs bending and lowing in a high wind, the fire and crackle of autumn? Did she miss walking barefoot over soft pine needles, toes wet with dew, before Red and Anouk woke up? The rough-hiss of June bugs, the warbler, the chickadee whistling comeplaywithme. Red and Anouk never knew that sometimes she did this, didn’t matter what the weather was doing, that sometimes she went outside, very early mornings, to listen.

Did she think about Red? Of course she did.

In the kitchen, Nora set the coffee maker and dropped two pieces of bread in the toaster. She waited, looking out of the window to the backyard, grass spangled with tall weeds and in need of a cut. A scatter of newspapers wrinkling and thickening in the grass under her abandoned deck chair. She took her breakfast out to the front porch and sat with a copy of yesterday’s local paper, turned to the column about the girl swimmer. Fourteen years old and was going to attempt to swim over fifty kilometres across Lake Ontario, starting from Niagara in the south-west and finishing in Toronto, not far from where Nora lived.