“You earned it.”
That sentence stayed with me.
You earned it.
Not we needed it.
Not someone else had already spent it.
Not it had arrived just in time to rescue us from something.
I had done the work.
The money had arrived.
And it was simply mine to manage.
A few days later, I took my mother to King Street.
There was a wool coat she had admired for years.
The good one.
Every time we had passed the shop, she had looked at it and then found a reason not to go inside.
Too expensive.
Not necessary.
Her old coat still worked.
There was always another reason.
That day, I walked into the store.
She stopped outside.
“Ivy.”
“Come on.”
“What are you doing?”
“Buying something.”
“You do not need anything in there.”
“I do.”
She followed me reluctantly.
When I pointed at the coat, she immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
“It’s a late Christmas present.”
“Christmas was months ago.”
“I’m aware.”
“Ivy, that coat is ridiculous.”
“So were the number of bananas you brought me after I threw my husband out.”
She stared at me.
Then she laughed.
I bought the coat.
My mother cried.
Then I cried because she was crying.
Leo sat between us on the floor later, chewing on one of his stacking cups and looking completely unimpressed by the emotional significance of outerwear.
Life didn’t suddenly become perfect after Wade left.
There were still hard nights.
There were deadlines.
There were legal details I had been relieved to put behind me.
There were moments when Leo made an expression that looked so much like Wade that it caught me off guard.
There were times I wondered where Wade was in Alberta and whether he had kept his promise to himself.
I never went looking for the answer.
In April, Toronto finally began to feel like it was releasing winter.
Morning light came through the condo windows differently.
Softer.
Warmer.
There was a brightness in the rooms that had been missing for months.
Leo had become obsessed with pulling himself upright.
The couch.
My legs.
The coffee table.
Anything within reach became an opportunity.
That morning, I was sitting on the floor while he held the edge of the coffee table.
My mother was in the kitchen.
Leo looked at me.
His little fingers loosened.
“Careful,” I said.
He let go.
For one second, he simply stood there.
His eyes widened as if he had surprised himself.
Then he moved one foot.
A step.
Another.
Then another.
Four steps.
Wobbly, uneven, determined little steps straight across the rug.
Then he dropped onto his bottom.
There was a half-second of silence.
Leo burst into delighted laughter.
I was beside him almost immediately.
“Oh my God.”
I lifted him.
“You walked.”
He laughed harder.
I pressed my face into his hair.
“Mom!”
My mother came out of the kitchen.
“What?”
“He walked.”
“What?”
“He walked. Four steps.”
She dropped onto the rug beside us in her good wool socks.
“Show Grandma.”
Leo grabbed my nose.
I laughed.
My mother laughed.
We put him back near the coffee table.
He pulled himself up again.
For a moment, as I watched him, another morning came back to me.
Ten days after he had been born.
Cold water.
Wet pajamas.
His frightened cry.
Roberta standing beside the bed.
Wade in the doorway.
That small expression on his face.
For months, I had believed that was the image I would carry from the end of my marriage.
But sitting there in the April light, I realized it wasn’t.
I remembered the paperwork, yes.
The security officers.
The garbage bags scraping down the hallway.
My mother arriving from Hamilton with soup.
Mr. Okafor sitting at my table going through bank statements.
The courthouse.
Wade walking down the steps.
The nights I worked with Leo sleeping nearby.
The morning the Waterloo payment arrived.
All of it was part of what had happened.
But it wasn’t where my mind wanted to stay.
Leo let go of the coffee table again.
My mother leaned forward.
“Come on, sweetheart.”
He took another step.
Then another.
We both started laughing.
Not because anything dramatic had happened.
Because my son was learning to walk.
Because my mother was sitting on my rug in the coat I had finally been able to buy her, wearing the good wool socks she always saved for indoors.
Because morning light filled the condo I had once worked so hard to purchase.
Because the rooms were quiet without being lonely.
Leo dropped down again and reached for me.
I pulled him into my lap.
My mother sat beside us.
For a while, none of us moved.
That is the image I carry now when things get difficult.
Not cold water.
Not Wade’s smirk.
Not gambling debts.
Not the sound of luggage and garbage bags moving down a marble hallway.
I remember the three of us on the rug in the April light, watching Leo figure out how to walk.
All of us laughing.
All of us home.
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