Until This Soul Departs

A Toronto inner-city hospital. January 1960. Well past midnight.

There it is, the first shriek. At least the brat sounds healthy. Is that the best I can expect, just that the infant isn't sickly-this red-faced newborn whose prospects appear so bleak?

The glacial fluorescent lights in this antiseptic cubicle that passes for a birthing centre allow for no shadows, no respite from their intrusive and impersonal glare.

I ought to sympathize with the resident on duty tonight, stuck here again for the third night in a row, assisting at another nameless birth. Tonight, he's too exhausted to react to that nurse's sarcastic comments. Right now, his only concern is finding his way to a bed, one where there are no pagers and no phones for the next few hours.

I have little reason to sympathize with that young mother, though. Her present situation is simply one of the many bits of unpleasantness that she has brought upon herself by her feckless behaviour.

The utter absence of human concern for her welfare in this institutional no man's land at the instant of giving birth? Well, that's just the way things are in any big city. If all goes according to plan, they can send her home within thirty-six hours; the administration's only concern will be the validity of her Ontario health card. Tomorrow, the whole sequence will be repeated.

And so begins our story. It's a story about aspiration, love, and betrayal. But most of all, it's about forgiveness.