But this time I told him that he was good, that I loved him, and that I’d never leave him. I said, “You’re a good man,” over and over. I hoped it would sink in, even if he didn’t remember.

In grade school, I used to hit him in the nuts all the time, unprompted, for fun, and he would go down just like that. Sometimes he’d get mad. Sometimes he’d laugh. No one thought it was weird. Boys. When I said I was an unhappy child, I meant that I was also an angry child.

Later that summer, a job offer came in for him in Kingston. They offered him a lot of money. “I’m thinking of taking it,” he said.

For me, it wasn’t a question. “If you wanted me to come with you, I’d come with you.”

He was silent. Then he changed the subject.

A couple hours passed that night in which I said goodbye to him in my head. I thought: Okay. I thought: Never mind. I thought: This strange boy from my past sewed my heart back together. I will mourn, I will hold him until he leaves, and then I will move on.

As we were getting ready for bed, he turned to me with screaming eyes and said, “Are you coming with me? Are we doing this? Are we really doing this?” He was shaking as I kissed him.

So we left the city and I moved east, again. We settled into the second floor of an old house with a balcony, a house with no screaming outside, no one beating on doors, no sounds of male rage through the walls. Ontario Works got me a job in a rental management office and I closed my eyes the one time they evicted two hookers.

We lived there for a year. I’m thankful for all of this. If your early thirties can be a rebirth, after rebirth had, supposedly, already been part of your life (I bought into the transition-as-second-puberty stuff hard), then any period of your life can bring renewal. Can’t it? I believe in that.

One day, I had this clear feeling. We went to this diner that had just opened. They used all local ingredients, claimed we really didn’t have to tip, said they were proud to pay their workers an actual living wage. I had a sandwich with soft, thick bread, a kind of cheese I’d never heard of, and fresh greens, and coffee that was somehow so fucking good I didn’t even put cream in it. I’d paid for meals that nice before, but this was the first time I did it without any regret or anxiety. That was the special thing. And we drove home (he drove home), and I thought, I made it.

3

And so then. The morning when it happened. You and I had been together eighteen months. We woke up in terrible heat. You went to open the windows and the air outside was wavy; our room was shimmering and gauzy in the light. Kids outside were running through the back lane, burning in the sun.