Writer's Excerpts

Caribana

by Denise Barnard

published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 2

In the summer of 1977, almost a year after Elvis’s death, I met my father for the first time. While many were still mourning the passing of “the King,” in Toronto, we were preparing for a party that promised to be hotter than the record temperatures that divided the city into those who loved the heat and those who didn’t. Almost everything I knew about Albert Godfrey was twenty years out of date. His lean, compact build, easy smile, slick razor cut, natty clothes and Ray-Ban shades had been captured in a snapshot taken on a hot day in 1958, not long before I was born. For me, those details were as close as I thought I’d ever come to knowing my father. Until that August morning when I rode the revolving door into the Sheraton Centre Hotel.

There he was, looking around the lobby anxiously. I could hardly breathe. When he saw me, a grin hijacked his face; I hadn’t seen anyone that happy in a long time. I swallowed hard, my stomach churning with fear and excitement, my throat dry.

To read the full piece, purchase TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 2