“Christ Almighty, child, I didn’t mean for you to walk! Get in.” Mama huffs out the window of Bessie, her beat-up maroon 1995 Toyota Corolla as she rolls up alongside me. I’d been traipsing down the dirt roadside for a mere seven minutes. Five more, and I’d be there. It seems silly to get in the car. But I do it anyway. I plunk my arse down in the front passenger seat and promptly start to argue with her.

“Ma, it’s not far.”

“I don’t give a flying fiddler’s fart if it’s within pissing distance. You’re in your friggin’ pyjamas, no bra on, your hair’s a rat’s nest, and you’re . . .”

Silence.

“Ma, I’m fine.”

She cocks her eyebrow to an angle that says, Liar. Then she slams on the brakes.

“Fine? Fine. Get out then. Just don’t come cryin’ to me when Peggy goes telling everyone and their dog that you were down at The Wharf this morning dressed like a streel.”

“Please. I’ve got better things to cry about.”

“Suit yourself. I’ve got to go lend Flossie Baker a hand. She hurt her hip again. I’ll pick you up at nine thirty-five on the nose for that doctor’s appointment. Here. Hot tea in that there cup thing of yours.”

“Thanks, Ma. Loves ya,” I half snort as I grab the travel mug from the console and get out of the car.

“Damn right you do!” I hear out the window as she wheels around and drives off.

I saunter down The Wharf road, a little afraid that I’ve jinxed myself with that foolish bravado, that I will wind up having a seizure, or going blind, or losing control of my legs, my bowels, or my mind down here by myself. But there are worse places for those things to happen. In a dank corner of the Bloor Street subway station, in the middle of the morning rush while doing a walk of shame home from a one-night stand, for example. Want to know what happens when a messy-haired, smeary-eyed streel of a woman crumples to the ground in a mess of vomit and piss and rolling eyes, then and there? Throngs of people just keep walking. A transit cop will tell her to move along. When she tries to explain that something is wrong — that she usually has tidier hair, less slutty clothes, and the ability to control her bodily functions — the words come as a slurry string of garbles, so he’ll call 911 and describe her as an unidentified incoherent female. Through a crack in the visual chaos of swirling colours and light, she’ll see the cop shake his head and hear him on repeat, until the paramedics arrive: “Ma’am, tell me your name and what you’re on.” The nurses will smile their best pity smiles when they see she’s got no one to pick her up at the hospital at discharge, and a cab driver from Sudan will be the first one to hear the news that she’s got brain tumours.