It floated.
It didn’t cover the birthday cake Leo wanted for next Tuesday. The one with the green dinosaurs.
That was the only thing still covered.
Maya’s kitchen table was a graveyard of paper. Notices of Assessment, letters from caseworkers, a tattered Ontario Disability Support Program guide—its pages soft and wrinkled from years of being thumbed through. She sat before it all, a single coin spinning on the worn linoleum.
Benefits : drug coverage, dental, vision. That part worked. Her MS medication was $6,000 a month—covered. A miracle typed in black ink. But when she’d asked David about the $250 for Leo’s school field trip, his face had gone soft with apology. “That’s not in the mandate.” what does odsp cover
Maya thought about what ODSP didn’t cover. It didn’t cover the bus fare to the MS clinic (two zones, $7.50). It didn’t cover the new battery for her wheelchair when the old one groaned up the hill to Leo’s school. It didn’t cover the quiet dread that lived in her chest—the math problem that never solved: $1,255 total. Rent $1,100. Leftover: $155. Food? Hydro? Leo’s feet growing again?
Basic needs : $733 for food, clothes, hygiene, hydro. She had learned to make soup from carrot peels and the ghost of a chicken. Her own socks were darned three times over. Last winter, she wore two sweaters to bed so Leo could have the extra blanket. It floated
The coin stopped spinning. She picked it up—a loonie. The last one until next week’s cheque.