It’s easier now. She can sit, she can stand. She can even toddle. A little walker. A big, big smile. Pick up the blocks. Throw the blocks. Babble one syllable words. There’s an EarlyON just down the street, we go there and she laughs and plays. My body is my own again. I stopped breastfeeding nearly five months ago. I’ve gained ten pounds since then, which quietly devastates me, but I have a daughter now, I can’t talk about my weight like that, she’ll hear me, she’ll be ruined.

“How do you feel about going back to work?”

“Do you have a daycare spot yet?”

“How many naps does she take a day? How many meals?”

Nothing is really about the baby anymore, but everything still orbits her. She is glorious and tiny and beautiful and perfect. But as for me …

“Honey, I have basketball tonight so I won’t be home before bedtime.”

I look up from my sketchbook and grumble.

Chris goes to our daughter and kisses her on her cheek. She’s sitting in her highchair, barely, gobbling down pancake after pancake.

“Should we be feeding her maple syrup?”

It’s a question I’ve asked myself hundreds of times. Just one of the things I wonder about these days. Everyone likes maple syrup, why wouldn’t Gloria deserve to eat it too?

“If you have an issue with how I’m parenting, maybe you should try to see your daughter for more than twenty minutes a day.”

He rolls his eyes and quietly goes out the backdoor to his bicycle. No kiss for mommy this morning.

Once he’s gone, our day really begins. Gloria eats her pancakes. I start singing. I’ve always been a self-singer, but now I have an audience. It’s glorious. “Glorious Gloria,” goes one of the best songs I’ve composed in the past year.

“You’re one year old now, Glory Bee!”

She shoves another piece of pancake into her mouth and starts choking. “Good job, baby. If it’s too much pancakey just cough it out. Good job for Mama.”

I flip through the sketchbook lying open on the table. I’ve tried to swap sketching software interfaces for Gloria or birds or some abstract meaning of motherhood, but I really just like designing websites.

“What do you think of this one, honey?” I hold up the sketch of a bank’s landing page. “And if you click here, you’ll see the little Hamburglar menu come down. You know hamburgers, you had one at Cecilia’s birthday party!”

Gloria makes her hands into pincers and frantically shoves them together. More, more, more.

“OK, sweetie, but daddy is a little bit right. It’s a lot of sugar. Let’s try some without the syrup.”

I hand her the blank pancake and she arches her back, screaming, and throws the pancake at my sketch book.

I pick it up. “I agree, that wasn’t the best design anyways.”

***

I live on the good side of Toronto, which means that there are elevators down to the subway line. This is lucky. But the route to those elevators leads me through some complex labyrinth deep within the city’s underbelly, and it takes five times as long to reach the southbound platform as taking the stairs would. Regardless, I am grateful for them, even if they smell of urine and fear. Honestly, Gloria and I don’t smell a whole lot better.

I try not to visit the office every week, but anxiety tethers me to the commute. At first, it was a fear of missing the commute, and then it was the fear that I was getting too used to not doing the commute, and now it’s the fear that I won’t like the commute when I actually have to start commuting again. I’ve stopped trying to go during morning rush hour or afternoon rush hour. During lunch, though, the subway in Toronto turns provincial, mimicking the great, empty space that is Canada.

Sarah is at the front desk, as she always is, when I exit the elevator on the twenty-fifth floor with Gloria.

“Our little mascot has returned!” Sarah comes around the desk to rub Gloria’s cheek. I’ve met tons of moms who hate this, the touching, the possessive statements. But I love the validation—it says, “look how cute this thing I made is!”

Gloria says hello and waves, which makes Sarah clutch her invisible pearls, invisible because she’s a twenty-five-year-old office manager at Outlook Consulting, not a sixty-year-old secretary at some ad agency from the 50s.

“She’s a genius,” Sarah says.

“I mean, honestly, I think so too,” I say.

I’m meeting my boss Gary for lunch today. I have the sketch that Gloria accosted with her pancake in my back pocket. When I visited last week, Gary let me know that we landed a big, new client—a national bank. I only had to ask twice for him to tell me the details. It’s confidential information, only for current employees, and I’m still in a gray zone. I arrived home buzzing with the news. My husband asked me if I’d be this excited if I was still working. I think he was trying to say that I was only excited because I missed work? He sometimes struggles to say what he really means.

“Claudia!” Gary says. “I have a surprise. A third party will be joining us for our lunch today.”

I think maybe it’s the client, that Gary somehow knows I’ve already been working on an idea for the new bank account. That wouldn’t make sense, this isn’t the order in which things are done, but lately, using my imagination whenever possible is the only thing that keeps me sane.

Silvia appears from the back. She’s my mat leave replacement. It’s awkward when I see her in my office at my desk. My photobooth pictures from last year’s office holiday party are hidden away in the drawer, and her name is taped over mine on the door.

She smiles at us. “I didn’t know we’d get the little one coming to lunch with us too!”

Silvia’s joining. My eyes widen and then I snap them back. “Can’t go anywhere without her.” I force a smile. Gary is talking to Sarah at the front desk. Silvia and I keep standing there like cousins who only see each other once a year at Christmas.

Gary taps the desk and turns to us. “Let’s go gals.”

I push the stroller, very happy for something to do with my body and my brain to distract myself from this turn of events because I can’t think of a single good reason why Silvia is coming along.

Gary and Silvia are chatting, catching up on some meeting. “I didn’t think…” “I think we should…” “The client was…”

I nod, pretending to follow, but I have no idea what they are talking about, and of course they know that.

“Sorry Claud, shop talk. You’ll be back in the loop soon enough.”

“I’m excited to get back,” I say. “Thanks again, Silvia, for covering for me. I’m sure they couldn’t have gotten by without you.”

Did I mean it as a compliment to me? Or a compliment to her? Or an insult to everyone else? They don’t seem confused or upset by my words, so I choose not to dwell on it.

We sit down at the cafe on the first floor. Gary has reserved a table near the windows, but there isn’t enough space for the stroller, so we’re relocated to a larger table in the back by the washrooms.

“Not the best view, but I suppose it’ll do,” Gary says.

Gloria immediately starts squirming in her stroller once we sit down.

“Let me just get her some milk.” I reach under the stroller and feel around for the bottle. I find diapers, wipes, toys that I’d haphazardly thrown in, puffs, a baby sweater covered in vomit, but no milk.

Fuck.

“It’s okay, sweetie.” I pick her up out of the stroller. She is thrashing now. “We can try to use the big girl straw to drink big girl milkies.” I wave down a server and ask if they have whole milk.

While I bounce Gloria on my knee, Gary and Silvia review the menu in silence. The server comes back with the milk and a straw and asks what we would like to have for lunch. Silvia gets the Cobb Salad. Gary orders the Tuna Melt. I haven’t had time to look at the menu so I copy Gary. “Maybe Glory Bee would like some toonie too!” I whisper in her ear.

“So, when does your leave end?” Silvia asks.

“Well, I’m aiming to be back next month,” I say while frantically moving all the cutlery and plates from Gloria’s reach. “Just waiting on daycare to confirm her spot.”

Silvia’s eyes light up as she begins describing all the challenges her friends have had in finding daycare in the city. I nod. Yes, it’s tough. In fact, it’s my entire life now, and I really don’t care to hear about her friends’ difficult experiences, too.

I coax the straw into Gloria’s mouth but the milk rushes too quickly down her throat and makes her choke and scream. “It’s okay, baby,” I say, rocking her. “Let’s try again.” Now she hates the straw, picks it up and throws it to the ground. I take a few deep breaths. Thankfully the food arrives. Gloria sways her arms in the air.

“My little foodie,” Gary says, wagging his fingers in front of Gloria’s face before biting into his tuna melt.

I hold the sandwich for Gloria who bites at it like a rabid dog. At this point, I’m struggling to focus, to comprehend anything. The buzz of the restaurant, the fear of Gloria choking as she chows down on a sandwich that definitely has chunks of celery and red onion in it. I think of pulling out my phone, going into the Solid Starts app to see if she’s even allowed to eat this, but I don’t want to seem insecure in front of Gary and Silvia.

“Aren’t you going to order something for yourself?” Silvia asks.

“Oh, I’m okay.” I pull a french fry off Gloria’s plate, but she shrieks so I put it back and take a sip of my water, but she shrieks again, so I give her the water, which dribbles down her front.

Gary licks his fingers, he’s finished his sandwich already. He passes me a fry under the table. I smile and sneak it into my mouth when Gloria isn’t looking.

“We wanted to grab lunch with you today because we have exciting news,” Gary says. “Silvia?”

Silvia sits up straight. What news could Silvia have for me?

“While you were out, Outlook Consulting has really grown. We have four new major accounts, including the bank, and we’ve hired three new designers.”

“That’s right,” Gary chimes in. “And Silvia here is going to lead the expanded UX team.”

“And I cannot wait to work with you! I feel like we’re already working together, what, with you coming in all the time. But to actually work with you, in the flesh, wow … I’m stoked.”

But I run the UX department. Sure, not in title, but in practice. I’ve been with this company since there were five of us huddled over a single table in the basement of a rock-climbing gym on Spadina Avenue.

“I’m stoked too,” I muster. Gloria, who has somehow finished an entire sandwich intended for an adult, starts squiggling in my lap.

“The company is growing,” Gary says, “and you and Silvia will both be integral to our continued success.”

“Just to be clear,” I say, because truly since I gave birth, I haven’t been clear on much in my life, “Silvia will be my boss?”

Silvia looks at Gary. He swipes his hand through the air. “Now that we have an actual HR department, they’ve been on me about hierarchy. We just need a name at the top. But you’ll be working together.”

Silvia nods enthusiastically.

“But, and sorry Silvia, I don’t mean anything by this question, why wouldn’t it be my name at the top?” It was my name permanently on the door, my name on the email signature to all clients until a year ago. My name, my name, my name.

“Mama!” Gloria yells.

“Yes baby?”

She smiles, and I smell poop. Then Gary smells poop. Then Silvia smells poop.

“Well, we’re at a good table for that,” Gary says, gesturing at the nearby washroom door.

“I’ll be right back.” I hold Gloria in one hand and grab a diaper and wipes from the stroller carriage.

“Mama, Mama, Mama,” Gloria keeps saying. We’re the only ones in the washroom. I whisper still, too close to Gary and Silvia for comfort.

“Those people are bad people,” I say. “They’re taking Mommy’s job.”

Gloria furrows her eyebrows. I kiss her cheeks a thousand times.

“Bad,” she says.

“Well, no, sorry honey, Mommy shouldn’t have said that. They’re just … well, Gary’s my friend. Right?”

She looks up, and I swear she shrugs.

With no more poop and a new diaper, we go back to the table. We all exchange awkward glances.

Gary looks at his watch. “That time is upon us,” he says. He stands and walks out before I can get Gloria strapped into her stroller. Silvia hangs back.

“Listen, I know it’s weird, but really, it’s just in title. We’ll be complete equals.” She rubs my shoulder.

We walk out together, and in the lobby, we catch up with Gary. He and Silvia take the elevator up to the office, and I travel the subway elevator labyrinth to go home and put Gloria down for her nap.

***

We need to find a daycare spot NOW!

The text to my husband is marked as read, but he doesn’t respond. What is he going to do about it anyways? I’m the one who's off work, I’m the one with time on my hands, I should be calling daycares all day. Half-formed thoughts swirl in my head … Do I really have so much extra time on my hands? Are these daycares all conspiring against us? Is my husband laughing at a water cooler with his colleagues right now? Can’t he …? Are we …?

“Glory Glory Bee,” I sing, “We gotta get you into daycare, can’t you see? Mommy can’t stay home all day with little Glory, Glory Bee!”

There are five daycares on our street alone, but I encounter at least that many strollers every time I go out. Infant rooms can take up to six children. Toddler rooms can have ten. There aren’t enough to go around. Some kids will be left out. But that can’t be Gloria.

The first one I call doesn’t answer, so I send them an email. The second one I call does answer and tells me that they might have space for her when she turns three. The third one I call is kind, sympathetic, we laugh, but when I tell her that I put Gloria on the list when I was three months pregnant, her voice grows grim.

“That’s pretty late,” she says. “Most folks get on the list the night they think they conceived.”

I laugh.

“I’m serious,” she says.

The fourth daycare I call has a spot, but when they ask my Hebrew name and I don’t have one, they no longer have a spot. The fifth daycare says to call back a month before I go back to work. I tell them I do go back to work in a month. They drop the call. The sixth daycare is non-subsidized but they have an opening—just not until she’s 18 months old. Most moms will extend their leave until their babies are 18 months now, so they can enter the toddler rooms, they tell me.

I thank them and ask if I can get it in writing that we’ll have the spot in six months’ time. They say yes, if we pay the annual non-government subsidized fee upfront for the year—$25,000. I say absolutely, we will, and look at my bank account and my EI payments that stopped this week, and I text my husband “Do we have $25k to send Gloria to daycare?”

***

Now that life is more my own—even though everything is still about the baby, which of course it is, as it should be—I can do things like go out for drinks with my friends sometimes.

The wine bar where we typically meet is in an old auto repair shop, on a street that’s filled with old auto repair shops that are now all bars and restaurants.

“Can’t Chris cover the bills?” Indigo asks. “Why go back at all?”

“Because I’m literally sketching websites on napkins.”

“Well, stop doing that.” She laughs.

“When you put it like that.” I take a sip of my wine. It tastes so crisp. It’s an orange-contact, unfiltered, organic, slightly effervescent wine, their best seller. The description on the menu reads: highly chuggable. I plan to have four.

Marina joins us. The three of us worked together at a café fifteen years ago. They don’t want kids. I don’t say this to them, never say this to them, but I can’t imagine what it feels like to still be so self-centered, to have no desire to care about someone other than themselves.

Marina’s husband has OCD and they’re trying to plan a trip to Brussels but he’s so nervous about the flight she thinks they’ll have to cancel.

Indigo has an opening for her photography exhibit next weekend. “Bring Glory,” she says. I smile. I will, I’m one of those moms, the city moms, whose baby will be exposed to city things like arts and public urination from a young age.

I tell them about Silvia’s promotion.

“Call a lawyer,” Indigo says.

“Be more assertive,” Marina says. “Demand that you be put in charge.”

“I can’t even go back to work for six more months now,” I say.

“Can’t Chris take his paternity leave? Isn’t that like the whole reason the government made it so parents could take 18 months?”

They don’t understand that this isn’t remotely possible, how impossible it would be to even suggest that my husband stay home for the next six months and take care of a baby so that I can return to work, and I can’t tell them that because I don’t want to admit that I’ve found myself trapped in a situation that’s familiar to every working mother in the world, and that I’m no different than any of them. I tell them Chris’s company is weird about it, and once I’ve finished my wine, I excuse myself to go pee.

While on the toilet, I scroll through recent photos on my phone: Gloria banging a wooden spoon on a pot, Gloria covered in chocolate, Gloria walking in the backyard, Gloria with her grandparents, Gloria with her other grandparents, Gloria when she was born. Yes, that photo—the one taken when her hands were still blue, when she was covered in vernix, when I just laughed and cried and said, “She’s you,” to Chris.

I kiss the screen. “I’ll be home soon baby,” I whisper.

We each have two more glasses of wine, and then Indigo and Marina want to go to a speakeasy across the street where, to get in, you have to ascend that thing that lifts cars so mechanics can work under them, up into a loft they built on top of what was once—like all of this once was—an old auto repair shop.

“I gotta go see Bee Bee before she’s asleep,” I say, though I know she’s already asleep. But I just need to be in the same building as her, to be close, to hear her little snores through the baby monitor.

I pull up Silvia’s LinkedIn as I walk the hill home and find a post about being laid off from a manager role at a big company when they restructured. That’s why she came on at Outlook to cover my mat leave. She has the experience and the drive, and, importantly, she’s the one who is currently present, there, in the office. Of course she was promoted.

There’s a grassy park at the top of the hill that overlooks the city. I stop there and sit on a bench. Through the branches I can see the CN Tower. I can see buildings that didn’t exist when I moved here fifteen years ago. I can see the places that have made this city our home, all the late nights and revelations that led me to being here right now.

I don’t email Gary and quit. I don’t demand the promotion. I don’t make a post about how horrible the daycare situation is. I don’t email my city counselor or my MPP or my MP about the lack of support and resources for working moms. I don’t call my husband's boss and scream at him that they need to encourage male parents to take parental leave.

Instead, I pick a wide blade of grass and stretch it between my thumbs. Bringing it to my lips, I blow a soft, low whistle. Glory Bee would love this. Her little eyebrows would scrunch up at first, but then she would laugh and laugh, and tell me to do it again. I grab a few more blades and gently fold them into my pocket. Tomorrow morning, after pancakes with or without syrup, after Chris leaves for work, I will sit my Glory Bee in my lap and share this new sound with her, this new possibility, this new life.