in a whole year and could give her just about anything.
There was no question that Kate should live with Sandra. With the hours I kept, it couldn’t be any other way – certainly not at her age. Perhaps later that might change, but for now, we had to be satisfied with what felt like stolen moments. Unless I went out of town for a gig, I tried my level best to see her every weekend. We’d share email during the week and talk on the phone. Kate was also after me to get a game system like the one Jeremy had given her so we could both play online. I’d reluctantly promised that I’d get one, not because I wanted to, but because I wasn’t about to let the interloper have one more thing that my daughter could share with him and not with me.
So that Sunday it was a bad movie (we agreed on that), pizza and a game of mini-putt, where we both cheated as much as possible. We also laughed a lot, and I forgot for minutes at a time how hollow the whole thing felt. Kate was just as aware as I how we had to fit a whole week of being together into a few short hours.
On the cab ride back to Jeremy’s, she cuddled up to me and whispered in my ear how she thought he was a “dork”. I squeezed her tight and didn’t say a word, mainly because her words hit me so hard. That was the first time she’d said anything on the subject.
“I love you, honey,” I managed to say as we pulled up in front of her new home.
“And I love you too, Daddy.You take care of yourself this week.You’re beginning to look pretty skinny!”
She kissed my cheek, and I kissed her forehead. Then she ran for the house without another word. Sandra was at the door to let Kate in, and her expression, as she closed it, was as devoid of emotion as ever.
On the train ride back into the city, I worked on my electronic agenda, lining up all the gigs the trio had over the next three months.
Just before the axe had fallen on our marriage, Sandra, Kate and I had discussed going to Disney World. That afternoon, I decided that if I could talk Sandra into allowing it, I’d take Kate there for a week in April. The plane tickets would cost a fortune, let alone rooms, food and Disney World admission, but gigs had been plentiful in the six months since Sandra had split, and I could just afford the trip.
I’d be damned if I was going to let Jeremy get there first with my daughter.
Back at Union Station, the mysterious girl I’d seen at the Sal was still standing outside the subway entrance with her pathetic coffee cup. Snow had begun falling, and that short stretch between the two stations was alive with flakes, dancing as they descended out of the darkness into the light. Even though completely fed up with winter at this point, the sight caught my attention.
It had apparently caught the girl’s, too, because she was standing there, head upturned, watching the big flakes descend. From the amazed expression on her face, you’d think she’d never seen snow before.
Noticing that her attention was elsewhere, a punk made a snatch for her cup.
Reaching out, I grabbed his wrist. Although I’m not the bulkiest guy around, drumming has made my forearms pretty strong, and he couldn’t shake me off.
“Hey, man! Leggo! What do you think you’re doing?”
I leaned forward and said quietly, “Why don’t you just hand the girl back her cup?”
“Man, you’re some kind of psycho!” the little rat said, rubbing his wrist after he’d done what I’d asked.
“Get lost!”
He did, and when I turned to look at her, the girl was staring back with those deep eyes. “You’re the man who was here this afternoon.”
“Yes, I was.”
“That’s twice you’ve done something nice for me. Thank you.”
“My name’s Andy. What’s yours?”
“Ummm...Olivia.”
“Are you always out here, Olivia?”
“Most days. People in Toronto aren’t as generous as they like to make out they are.”
I laughed. “Don’t I know it.”
She laughed, too, a nice sound, then her expression changed. “I have to go now.”
Without another word, she turned and hurried away. What had I done to spook her?
The episodes with Olivia at Union Station fell out of my mind over the next week. The car wound up costing a lot more than I’d been led to believe, and when I began seriously looking into taking Kate to Disney World, the cost of that little excursion was absolutely staggering.
I knew what Sandra would have told me. “Sell the damn house. You know you need the money.”
Fortunately for me, it was my house – completely. When my parents had both died within a year of each other, it had been left to me as the only child, and by a stroke of good fortune, I had inherited their estate three weeks before my marriage to Sandra.
But she was right; I could get a good price for it in Toronto’s superheated real estate market. Houses like mine in Riverdale often went for upwards of a million bucks, a stunning figure, considering what my dad had paid for it nearly forty years earlier. With that money (pure profit), I could buy a condo and put the rest in a retirement plan. I’d be set for my golden years, right?
But I just couldn’t bear the thought of giving it up. It had a soundproof basement studio where I gave lessons to a few students and where I could also rehearse a pretty decent-sized band if I wanted, but it was more than those obvious needs. The place had become part of my psyche, and in my present circumstances, that was a very important thing. Except for a few months at various times over the years, I’d never lived anywhere else.
With a ton of things weighing on my mind, I headed off to the Sal that fateful Tuesday evening, not even really thinking about the gig, let alone a girl I’d only seen three times and had barely spoken to.
Of course, it was raining. It’s always raining or snowing or doing something miserable when I have to move my drums. With a steady gig, I could leave them in place for a few nights, but once we finished on Thursday night, I had to horse them out again. That’s the lot of a gigging musician, something you put up with, but it can be a drag – especially if you’re a drummer. There are a number of parts to a drum set.
Pulling to the curb in a no-parking zone, I put the blinkers on and opened up the hatchback on my old Honda. Take out the trap case, lay the bass drum on top of it, close the trunk and head for the door to the club. Once inside, take the bass drum off the trap case and take each down the steep stairs. By the time I went back to the car to retrieve the two tom-toms, the rain was really coming down.
Normally I would have parked my heap at the lot down the street and carried the two toms back with me, but I decided to take them in first so I could run from the lot to the club more easily.
I had just stuck my key into the hatchback’s lock when a cab swerved to avoid God knows what. It went right down the centre of a puddle next to the car, totally drenching the left leg of my pants.
Cursing, I stared laser beams at the rapidly disappearing cab. A flash of red in a doorway across King Street caught my eye.
