a man whose surname was also a first name. He was middle-aged, with an East Coast accent and a paunch that strained his shirt buttons. Puffy skin bags rested under his blue eyes. He surveyed Ismail’s crowded cubicle, a nine-by-nine space large enough for a desk, filing cabinet, and a couple of chairs, and suggested that they speak somewhere more private. The office was quiet that afternoon, and so Ismail assured him it was fine to talk confidentially. He invited Bill Todd to sit down, and offered him a cup of coffee. Although he didn’t often speak with police in his role at the City, their responsibilities sometimes overlapped and he assumed the matter had something to do with a tunnel or bridge, matters under his jurisdiction.
Bill Todd declined the coffee. He peered cautiously into the vacant neighbouring cubicles and then sat down only after Ismail did. His careful movements made Ismail grasp the seriousness of his visit and his body responded before his mind, sending perspiration to his palms and armpits.
“What can I help you with, Officer?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly, betraying the outwardly calm countenance he was trying to affect. “Is this about a municipal issue?”
“No. I need to ask you a few personal questions, Mr. Box —,” he said, hesitating and reading the silver name plate at the front of his desk. Nabil had gifted him with it the previous year, on his thirty-fourth birthday. Everyone needs a spiffy name plate, Ismail.
“It’s Boxwala. Personal questions? About what?”
“Yes, Mr. Boxwala —” he said, again consulting the name plate.
“— has something happened to my wife? Has there been an accident?” Ismail interrupted. He slipped a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his damp hands, but quickly stopped and put it away when he saw the officer observing him. His heart began to race and the air felt hot and stuffy.
“It’s not your wife. Mr. Boxwala, do you own a Honda Civic, with the license plate number —” Ismail didn’t hear the rest. He instantly understood what was wrong. Zubi. His eyes lost their focus, and everything seemed to vibrate. Ismail’s mind dashed ahead of him: I took Zubi to daycare this morning, didn’t I? He tried to picture the daycare’s doors, its hallways, her teacher, but couldn’t. He stood up to get more air, but no matter how much he inhaled, there still there wasn’t enough. He understood that the reason for the officer’s visit was in the backseat of his car, just as he’d left her, asleep, her soft black hair resting against her baby seat.
“Excuse me, I must go, I have to check on something —” Ismail said, rising from his chair, stepping around his desk. He wanted to go backwards in time, get Zubi from the car, parked just a few minutes away. And then he would take her to daycare as he should have. Bill Todd stood up and blocked his way.
“Please sit down, Mr. Boxwala. Sit down,” he repeated sternly, his beefy hand gently guiding Ismail back around his desk and into his chair.
“You don’t understand, you see I must go check … I usually drop the baby off first … my daughter, Zubi … then my wife at her work, and then I come to work … but the order got changed today … I have to go get my daughter. Please, let me go to her!” Ismail sputtered, gasping for breath.
“It’s too late, Mr. Boxwala. She was found about an hour ago.” He barely heard the words; they were travelling away from him, faint, barely comprehensible syllables.
“What? What do you mean? Then she is … okay?” Ismail grasped for any possibility, any hope that Zubi was all right. Bill Todd shook his head, bit his lip, grimaced. For the first time during his visit, he didn’t make eye contact with Ismail.
“No, it can’t be. Oh no … oh no … Zubi!” Ismail wailed, forcing himself up out of his chair again. “Please, I have to go see her.” His mind refused to let go of the fantasy that Zubi was still alive: Yes, of course her crying would have alerted a pedestrian, a Good Samaritan who would have called the police, freed her from the car …
“It’s too late. She was found in your car, like I said, about an hour ago. Deceased. Most likely from the heat.” This time he did make eye contact, icy blue ponds.
“Oh no.” Ismail gasped, holding his chest.
Each time Ismail remembered this next part of the story, he viewed it in near-cinematic slow motion. A millisecond before he closed his eyes and fell to the ground, he saw Officer Todd’s anxious expression as he lunged forward to steady him. A co-worker, young, pretty, recently hired Chitra Malik, peeked into the cubicle, alarmed by the commotion.
He had no fear as he lost his balance and the world spun away from him. Rather, he had an amazing and naive thought: he believed he was dying, his life being snatched up in a great dizzying whirl, and he was on his way to greet little Zubi so that he could hold her one last time. He might cuddle her on his lap, kiss her sweet-smelling head, and then, in the vast wisdom of all things celestial, switch places with her.
Daphne had finished ranting and was now watching him with curious eyes.
“What?” he asked nonchalantly.
“You’ve kinda been staring off into space for the last few seconds.”
“Oh, sorry. Just tired I guess.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said and turned her gaze to the back doors, where the police had re-emerged. They travelled through the bar, the same way they’d entered, taking their time to scrutinize patrons. Before they could reach the front where he and Daphne sat, Ismail pulled some bills from his wallet, and muttered a quick goodbye to Daphne.
He walked the few blocks home, the glaze of intoxication making the sidewalk crooked beneath his feet. At his front door, he searched his coat and pants pockets for his keys, fumbling past loose change and bits of paper. Eventually he found them within his coat’s inside breast pocket, an unlikely place, and he wondered how they’d gotten there. Dangling before his eyes, they seemed unfamiliar, like someone else’s misplaced keys.
A silver key met its matching lock, a bit of grace on a graceless night. He crossed the threshold, and although he knew the house was empty, he sensed he wasn’t completely alone.
— * —
It was ten o’clock already and the nurse who came to check José urged Celia to go home for the night. “Have a rest, take a shower. He’ll still be here in the morning,” she said, clicking her pen open and scribbling something down in a chart. She efficiently moved around the bed, inspecting her husband’s limp body and the beeping machines that sustained him.
Lydia had been by earlier, bringing food during her lunch hour and a change of clothes after work. Celia hadn’t thought to ask for toiletries, and so she’d had to swish her mouth with water and wash her face and armpits with the harsh cleanser and brown paper towels in the public washroom down the hall. She guessed the nurse could tell she needed a bath. Later, she questioned why it hadn’t occurred to her to just go down to Shoppers on the first floor for travel-sized containers of toothpaste and face cream.
She picked herself off the chair, glad for the nurse’s permission to leave. By then, she’d spent two days at her husband’s sleeping side while others in the family had come and gone. The doctor had checked in twice and reassured her that his condition was improving. He’d looked at her sternly, as though José’s angina was her fault, and warned that there’d need to be lifestyle changes. She’d nodded dumbly and listened as he discussed recommendations for medication and future surgery.
She decided to walk home, even though Antonio,
