Chapter 1: Brady

Sarah hadn’t always been her name.

When it was cold outside, she hadn’t always slept on an uncomfortable bench in a lonely train station either. Louis, the elderly night watchman, sometimes let her sleep in the station, especially when the temperature dropped below freezing. He said that Sarah reminded him of his granddaughter. Louis possessed kind eyes that twinkled, especially when he spoke of his granddaughter. Louis also never expected a favour from her in exchange for warmth and the rigid bench. She idly wondered what it was like to have family that loved and whose eyes twinkled when they thought of each other. Such was no longer her life if indeed it ever had been.

Sarah sat on the tiled floor of the station, her knees drawn up to her chest, shoulder blades pressed against the wall. Her tatty and dirty sneakers exposed her toes through worn holes in the mesh. Her jeans were ripped at both knees and there was a large un-mended tear descending the length of her right thigh, her pale flesh peeking through, a faint scar visible. She supposed torn jeans were fashionable these days, but hers were unintentional, unlike the scar. She ran one fingertip around the rim of the battered Tim Horton’s cup resting near her left shoe. It had been months since the cup contained coffee; instead, a small scattering of coins rested in a pathetically small pile at the bottom.

She looked up as she heard a familiar cadence of steps, and a distinctive clearing of the throat.

Her bearded visitor was as old as Louis the watchman. Like Louis, he similarly possessed kind and intelligent eyes. She didn’t know his name, but she thought of him as either Fedora or DW. He always wore a faded brown fedora and carried a battered briefcase engraved with the initials: DW. Often DW wore a timeworn tie-dyed shirt, a reminder of a long lost summer of free love. Once, she had mentioned the fedora and he gently corrected her: It’s a faded Australian cowboy hat. Sarah remained unconvinced; in her mind, he remained Fedora.

He crouched by her, clearly struggling with his knees. He offered her a smile, which beat the hell out of most of the expressions of distaste most often directed at her.

“Smile, child,” he said, his voice gravelly but affectionate.

She didn’t think of herself as a child, although she was significantly younger than both Louis and Fedora. As Louis noted regularly, she could easily have been either man’s grandchild. Growing up slowly hadn’t been an option for her. Her entire short life, but particularly the last five years, had forced an untimely maturity and cynicism upon her, whether she was ready for such qualities or not. As fate would have it, there remained significant and unwelcome growing for her to achieve.

She forced a weak smile to her lips, but didn’t otherwise move. The hesitant smile seemed to satisfy him. He reached into a pocket and rattled a few coins into her cup.

“Thank you,” she said softly. She sensed that he couldn’t afford the donation and she didn’t understand why he treated her with such generosity. She was merely one unremarkable street rat amongst many in this city.

He looked at her closely. She sensed only concern for her, not pity.

“Are you hungry, Sarah?”

Her stomach growled quietly. She nodded mutely, her chin touching her dirty knees. He reached into the briefcase and extracted a plastic bag containing a homemade sandwich.

“Take this,” he offered it to her.

She shook her head. It wasn’t the first time they’d performed this dance. She somehow knew it was his lunch for the day and that he couldn’t afford to buy a replacement.

“That’s your lunch,” she replied softly. “I’m fine. Really.” Her stomach rumbled, belying her words. It had been at least a day since she’d last eaten.

He looked at her, his eyes flashing: You are about as far from fine as the Moon is from the Earth.

“Take it,” he insisted.

She remained with her arms wrapped protectively about her knees. He sighed exasperatedly and placed the sandwich by her cup and straightened with a grimace.

“Thank you,” she whispered. The train station was noisy, but he smiled in response.

“Don’t talk to strangers,” he said with a smile.

Everyone was a stranger.

“You’re a stranger,” she noted with a faint smile. She didn’t even know his real name; she’d never even thought to ask. He stared down at her for a minute. She relented. “I won’t. You’re the last stranger I’ll talk to,” Sarah finally lied. He would be late for wherever he was going, so she felt compelled to finish the exchange.

She watched him stride away into the river of commuters cascading through the station, the briefcase swinging easily with this steps.

It would be the last she’d see of Fedora for a very long time.

A sketchbook rested in Sarah’s lap, lying casually across her crossed legs. Using the stub of a worn old pencil, her fingers drew a black-and-white realistic image of a woman lying beneath a weeping willow staring wistfully into a cloudless sky. The picture-woman exuded a melancholy, a yearning for somewhere to belong. Sarah’s face pinched in concentration, time ceasing to exist for her as she drew. Passers-by sometimes dropped a coin or two into her cup, but she paid little attention beyond mumbling a thank-you. Commuters largely ignored her, even those who mindlessly donated change to Tim Horton.

Sarah slowly experienced that sensation of being watched, a latent extra-sensory ability. She bit her lip and adjusted a willow branch before raising her face.

He was a clean-shaven man, tall and very gaunt, similar in build to some drug addicts who she knew from deep in the distillery district. Unlike the addicts, he wore pressed khakis, new‑

looking loafers and cobalt button-down shirt open at the collar. This man wore his hair regally long, tumbling loose about his shoulders, similar in length to her own matted blonde locks, perhaps even longer. The man’s hair fell completely straight and, unlike hers, looked clean and styled. His facial features had an angelic quality, his piercing turquoise eyes following each movement of her fingers as her pencil traced across the paper. The afternoon commuters flowed around him, sensing his distinct presence, like an immobile island. His physicality reminded her of a lost flower child or a classic portrait of Jesus. Unlike Fedora, he, of course, was far too young to be an original flower child, and there was no tie-dye, but his image embodied an undeniable aura of free love, inspiration and idealism.

Don’t talk to strangers.

But if she didn’t dare speak to strangers, who would she ever speak to?

“Spare change?” she ventured timidly. Some commuters would bark at her regardless of how pleasant they might look, or how polite she was: get a job, you’ll waste it on cigarettes and booze or simply fuck off. She was accustomed to it.

This man cocked his head to the side, then crouched. Even so, he continued to tower over her. He extended an open hand.

“May I see what you’re drawing?” the man asked.

For a moment, Sarah considered closing the notebook and protecting it from him. In the end, she figured if Jesus would steal her drawings, she had larger issues. This stranger wouldn’t understand her images, regardless. She pressed the notebook into his outstretched palm. He turned the book towards him and gazed at the drawing as if it were an undiscovered Monet. He nodded and handed the book back to her. Sarah closed the sketchbook and held it protectively to her chest.

“She seems sad,” the man noted. “Under the weeping willow.”

“She hasn’t had the best life. She cries often.”

The man nodded and inhaled deeply, his eyes piercing into Sarah. He seemed to arrive at a hidden conclusion.

“I’m Brady,” he said, offering his hand. Sarah looked suspiciously at his hand, but didn’t touch it, instead gripping the notebook closer to her body.

“I’m Sarah,” she responded cautiously.

Brady withdrew his hand without rancour. He smiled faintly.

“May I join you for a moment, Sarah?”

She nodded slowly. “It’s a free country.” It was, but it wasn’t. Further, she suspected that if she had said no, Brady would have simply risen to his feet and walked away without another thought. She wondered why he might want to talk to her. Only two options seemed likely to her. He wanted what all men want, and she might not be as hungry tomorrow. Or he was a religious nut sent to heal her soul. In the former case, Fedora’s sandwich had taken the edge off and she might not agree to prostituting herself today. In the latter case, her soul was far beyond salvation.