There were legal details too. We met with attorneys, discussed custody, arranged visits, and agreed that Leo’s sense of safety mattered more than my impatience. At first, I was simply Ivan, the man Mom used to know. Then I became Ivan, the man who came on Saturdays. Slowly, I became someone he expected to see again.
Every small promise mattered. If I said I would arrive at ten, I arrived before ten. If I said I would watch his rocket launch, I stood beside him when he pressed the button. Trust, I learned, was not rebuilt through speeches. It returned through repetition.
And each ordinary visit gave him one more reason to believe I would return.
Three months later, winter had softened into the pale green beginning of spring.
I stood in Jessi’s backyard wearing jeans and an old T-shirt, helping seven-year-old Leo build a wooden launchpad for his model rocket.
