Peter Raymonde

Peter Raymonde is Kirsten Raymonde’s older brother and, in the first days of her separation from their parents, the person who took responsibility for her. His role is defined by two acts of care at different scales: receiving a young child when the adults around her could not locate her family, and later getting her out of an emptying Toronto as ordinary travel collapsed into flight.

Identity and Family Role

Peter is much older than Kirsten: she recalls that he was fifteen or sixteen when their parents failed to come for her. He was already accustomed to looking after her, and she describes him as someone who had cared for her often. The age difference makes his later responsibility more than a single emergency favor; for Kirsten, he was an established source of practical care within a family whose parents had suddenly become unreachable.

Taking Kirsten In

On the night Kirsten was left at the theatre, the woman caring for her could not reach their parents. She eventually called Peter, who was at home. He did not know where their parents were either, but told the woman she could bring Kirsten to him and that he would look after her. Kirsten does not remember this exchange herself; she learned the details from Peter later. The woman drove Kirsten home and left her with him. Her parents never returned to her life, and the loss became part of a wider pattern Kirsten recognized in other people’s stories: families disappearing without explanation.

Leaving Toronto

Years later, in the last days before Kirsten and Peter left Toronto, Kirsten stayed in the basement watching television while the neighbourhood emptied. Peter went out at night to find food, which Kirsten believes he was stealing. One morning he told her, “Kiki, we’ve got to go.” He hotwired a car abandoned by neighbours, and they drove for a while before the evacuation routes defeated them: every expressway ramp was clogged with abandoned cars, as were the side roads. They had to leave the car and walk with everyone else.

The Journey and Peter’s Significance

Peter took Kirsten east and south, around the lake and into the United States. By then the border was open because the guards had left. The account gives no further details of Peter’s life or fate, but his place in Kirsten’s history is clear: he responded when she had been left without her parents, and when the roads no longer offered a way forward, he kept her moving on foot. His care links a private family rupture to the wider collapse, showing how survival depended not only on escape routes but on someone willing to take a child along.