I began bellowing Linus’s name over the fence. I had no idea if he was just on the other side, foraging a few feet from me, or racing at thirty kilometres an hour in the direction of Newfoundland. I went back inside, leashed Buddy up, put on a mask and circled the neighbourhood for an hour, ringing doorbells and traversing the brushy alleys between and behind the properties. I checked the house, in case Linus had returned, then decided to leave Summerhill and go downtown to Grange Park, good old Buddy limping diligently along with me, on the ­off-­chance that Linus had headed that way.

In the last few days restrictions had eased again. People were permitted back inside stores and cafes, though in limited numbers. As we arrived downtown, I began to see them, the staggered lines of people queuing outside department stores. And there seemed to be more vehicles in the street after months of nothing but police cruisers and ambulances.

It was a beautiful evening in the city, the setting sun streaking the blue sky ­rose-­gold. A small crowd had gathered in Grange Park. Groups of young people, families. There were people sunbathing and lounging on picnic blankets, drinking wine from coolers and eating takeout out of Styrofoam boxes, kids playing peekaboo among the enormous bonelike curves of the park’s bronze Henry Moore sculpture, Large Two Forms. There was a man and a woman in Lycra and taped fists throwing practice punches at each other. The crowd consisted of, at most, forty people, some masked, some not, but after the nervous emptiness of the past few months, it seemed as if a festival had broken out. I sat down with Buddy, in our usual spot, from where we would watch Linus tear across the grass.

I looked up my father’s number. Still not saved in my phone as a name, just a logged row of digits I only half knew by heart. Since we’d started talking again, my father had always been the one to initiate contact; fair enough, I had always thought, because I was the injured party, I was the one to whom redress was owed.

I dialled his number. Ring, ring, ring. It went to voicemail. He had botched his personalised ­message – all I heard was a surprised, ­split-­second snatch of indrawn breath dilating in exasperation before the cut to the beep.

‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘I talked to your doctor. She gave me the news. She said you’re going into surgery first thing tomorrow. I probably won’t get to talk to you until after, now. Anyway. I just thought I’d try you.

I paused, waited a moment, and then I said, ‘Maybe you were right after all.’