St. Joseph's Health Centre

St. Joseph's Health Centre is the Toronto setting for a short episode of cataract care for Yolandi Von Riesen's mother. The novel gives few institutional details; instead, it shows the hospital through the practical routines of treatment and the family life that gathers around them.

Setting and Care

Yolandi arrives to pick up her mother from a room at St. Joseph's Health Centre, where a number of older people are wearing patches over their left eyes. Her mother explains that the cataract doctor operates on left eyes one week and right eyes the next. She has been given six small bottles of eye drops, with instructions for using them.

Treatment and Family Routine

Over the following couple of weeks, Yolandi and Nora take turns administering the drops. The schedule is exacting: two, four, or six drops from each bottle, three minutes between bottles, four times a day. Their mother removes her glasses, tips her head back, and pushes her white hair away from her eyes; after the sessions, she plays online Scrabble while tears run down her face.

The pauses between drops become time for music. Yolandi and Nora play fast piano duets, including their mother's favourite hymns at a pace that makes her laugh. Nora races through Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Handel's Sarabande. The hospital routine is therefore presented not only as treatment but as a repeated family task, with music and humour woven into the waiting.