That was the real danger, greater than any custody dispute or financial settlement: that Leo would learn from his father’s betrayal to stop being the boy who made the drawing.

And so my whole project, from that day forward, was to make sure he never learned that lesson — to prove to him, by a thousand daily demonstrations, that his open heart was not a mistake, that loving fully was not foolish, that the problem had been his father and not his love.

The drawing sits in a drawer still.

But the thing it stood for is out in the world, ten years old, in a flight jacket, still whole.

That is the victory I am proudest of.