eglinton west to lakeshore east

by Isabella Maingat

Anak! Anak! she wails, adrift in the sea of commuters, venturers. Her feet stumble as the subway starts and stops, starts and stops. Anak? Where are you? Have you seen a little girl? The crowd doesn’t avert their eyes so much as keep them forward. Some of them spare a glance backwards with a look of longing. Or, bitterly, she thinks, pity. Remorse. They think she’s gone.

So, she keeps moving, shouldering past wrought iron bodies.

Next stop: Union. Union Station.

She catches a glimpse of pink on a head that reaches a man’s knees and she wildly swipes for it, splitting the crowd. She misses the moment. The pink slipped away, swallowed by the sand, and she berates the spot where the girl used to be. How could she run from her like this? She’s comforted her for crying as many times as she’s chastised her for it. She’s raised her and loved her and hated her. They share a face, a shadow. And she can’t lose her, no, not yet. Not yet. Can’t lose the classroom crafts or the chalked sidewalks. The easy summers or rainbow parachutes. There’s still time, there has to be.

There’s a shift, a shuffle as people stand and fall in line behind the sliding doors. But she stays behind, clinging to the hanging straps in the subway car. 

And between the slivers of suits and briefcases she spots two little pigtails, and she becomes a bowling ball, barrelling past pins and gutters until she snatches the girl into her arms. Dark hair and chubby cheeks. Stained shirt and tiny jeans. Pink bucket hat and doll hair clenched between her baby teeth.

Now arriving at: Union. Union Station. Doors will open on the left.

Anak, oh, anak. She squeezes the girl in her arms, squeezes her eyes shut as the train car drains. Where were you? I was looking for you. 

Right here, ate. 

You must have been scared. So, so scared. 

No, ate, you were right here. 

You’re so brave, she strokes her hair, so grown up. 

You are, ate. You’re at your stop. 

Halika na, come with me. 

I can’t. Everything’s too big for me now. 

I know, she sobs into her shoulder. Just—Just let me stay a little bit longer.