—Time as Chorus in The Winter’s Tale SHE TOOK THE HAND HE EXTENDED AND STEPPED OUT OF THE CAR. When she reached for the baby, he said, “I’ll do that. We need to get you in first.” Had the muscles in her back and legs not ached from pushing Nicole out, had her anus not been on fire from who the hell knew what the doctor had done when she was spread open and helpless, she might have caught the treachery in his voice. She held onto his arm. Let him put one hand on her waist and guide her inside. As she hobbled into the washroom to change the soaked pad between her legs, he said he’d be right back. She didn’t see him when she came out. The baby wasn’t in the bassinet beside their bed. She shuffled to the garage. The car was gone. 8:30. Nearly sixteen years later, in a room with chandeliers and champagne-coloured walls, Sona prepares to speak of that day. The occasion is a breakfast to raise funds for several women’s shelters in Toronto. As hotel staff clear plates and refill coffee cups, she stands in a shadowy corner, recalling how her lungs seized up in the forsaken garage, the simultaneous heating and cooling of her skin, the rage that lived in her throat for weeks, the months it took to resign herself to his having trumped her.
