“She loved strawberry ice cream.”
“She could never fold a fitted sheet.”
The harder questions came later.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did she leave?”
That one nearly destroyed me.
The first time he asked, Leo was seven.
We were driving home from school.
I pulled into a grocery store parking lot because I didn’t trust myself to answer while driving.
I turned around.
He was waiting.
“What did I do?”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Did I make Mom go away?”
“No.”
I said it so quickly that he jumped.
I reached into the back seat and took his hand.
“Leo, listen to me. You did nothing. Nothing.”
“But she left after I was born.”
Children notice more than adults realize.
I swallowed hard.
“Grown-ups sometimes make choices children don’t understand.”
“Do you understand?”
I could have lied.
I didn’t.
“No.”
He looked out the window.
“Do you hate her?”
I thought about that.
“Sometimes.”
Leo nodded.
Then he said something that stayed with me.
“Maybe she hates herself.”
I stared at him.
He was seven.
Seven.
And somehow he had found a possibility I’d never considered.
Still, I wasn’t ready to forgive her.
Not even close.
Every Mother’s Day, Goldi’s absence seemed louder.
The week Leo was born, while we were still in the hospital, I had bought a Mother’s Day card from the gift shop.
It showed a cartoon lion cub hugging its mother.
Inside it said:
For the mom who makes everything feel safe.
I planned to let Leo scribble something inside when he was older.
Instead, the card stayed in my bedside drawer.
Year after year.
I don’t know why I kept it.
