My sister’s train was late. It was supposed to have arrived at Montreal’s Central Station at seven, and it was now twenty past. It was 1996, and no one had cellphones. All I had to go by was the information posted on the massive platform display hanging over the middle of the cavernous concourse, which declared that my sister’s train was À l’heure/ On Time.

My god, I was tired—a profound, deepin-the-bones exhaustion. My head ached. My eyes hurt. My limbs felt heavy. I leaned my forehead against the wall, the coolness of the polished granite soothing in the humid May evening. The station was quiet, and I could have fallen asleep right there.

I was reeling from the year I’d just finished at the University of Victoria: more than a full-time course load, long nights working on theatre productions, longer nights with my ...