Shouldn’t it have rightfully perished with him? Reside with him?
“It’s okay, then?” the man asked.
She looked up.
“That I smoke?” he said.
“Yes, do.”
Came a vague platform announcement about Peterborough.
“This is my only suit,” he said.
“Oh.” She didn’t look up.
“Actually,” he continued, “these are all the clothes I have in the world.”
She didn’t respond.
“My uncle gave it to me,” he said. “The suit. As a favor to his brother. He’s a tailor.”
She thought for a second then looked up and nodded. “Yes,” she said. She glanced up at his suitcase on the luggage rack above.
“Empty,” he explained.
She blinked at him and returned her attention to the letter:
You’ll be shocked to know, Mum, I’ve met a girl, Joyce, through Captain Grey of all people. You’ll like her, Dad, quite good-looking, though Roger said not as pretty as our . . .
Her eyes skipped down a line or two until they touched on what she sought.
And Dad, please reconsider sending Susan up to Uncle Cec’s brother-in-law. Ben, isn’t it? The blacksmith? Look at it this way, Dad, not only will she be safe, but she might even learn a trade, ha, ha. (I know you’re reading this, Susan, I do.)
She folded the letter over on itself, unable to continue. The conductor’s whistle blew and the train lurched slightly and like all trains for an infinitesimal moment the linked carriages not only paused but almost reared back. Through the window, she could see the station building: dun-bricked, the mortar pock-holed from neglect, the pock-holes square, like a nag’s missing teeth; the station’s windows steamed and piped in peeling red. Slowly she shook her head.
“Everything going to be okay?” the well-dressed man asked.
“Who—who can say?” she answered.
Only now did the train couple forward, eventually clattering northward on its way.
In the spring of 1982, at the age of thirty-one, Polo finally stared down the terror of being a grown-up. He chucked his job as a postman, wooed and courted a young emerald-eyed library student named Julie, and once they’d wed he installed them both in a renovated loft in Toronto’s Beaches. Pleased with how effortless it seemed so far, he sprung for a fine-tailored pinstripe suit, a pair of gray flannel slacks, and a complementary navy blue blazer from The Brick Shirt House, each and all perfect for his new job at Toronto Life
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