Look At This Photograph

The other day I'm searching on Facebook for a photograph I knew was taken of me, but wasn't sure it was actually posted. It was of myself and a female of interest. What I mean by that is she is a friend, but there is some mutal interest beyond the definition of the word friend, but also not falling into the realm of romantic either. We'd hit it off recently and had been spending a bit of time together. I didn't find the picture I was looking for, but about where I thought the picture should be, I found a picture of the FOI with some attractive guy I didn't recognize. I felt an extra twinge of unjustifiable jealousy and disapointment as I noticed the date. The picture was posted Septemeber 15, was also a day we had spent together which I thought was signifigant. I was jealous of the handsome confident guy in the photograph, but I shouldn't have been.

I was filled with resignation, but pondered where I was a year prior, September 15, 2016. I was in the final death throes of an awful three year long relationship. In hindsight the realtionship should have only lasted three months. Primary issue was, in spite of living a mere seven miles apart, I was lucky to get one evening with her a month. It was never because of being busy though. She always had an excuse. Her friends expected her to be somewhere so she'd cancel. She was afraid of her abusive roommate/ex so she didn't want to anger them by spending time with me. She'd say "that sounds like fun" and then claim that was different than actually agreeing to thebplans I proposed. She'd pick a fight with me, then think it obsurd that I'd still want to spend time with her, even if just to talk out the issues. Those and hundreds more.

Make no mistake about it, plans were made and made often. They just never happened and according to her, it was never her fault. I spent most of the last summer we were "together" in some combonation of therapy, on antidepressants, drunk and/or high trying to understand why a woman who claimed to love me as much as her children, wouldn't find even a few hours for me a week. My self esteem was mangled, and I struggled to get out of bed on a daily basis but usually did. Then one day it hits me. We'd been together for three years and she had never taken a single picture of me. Her social media was filled with pictures of her, her friends, her kids and even her abusive ex/roommate. But she hadn't even even taken a single one of me, let alone posted one. Whereas I had taken a picture of her on our very first date.

The realization felt like a cattle prod to the heart, but it was finally something she couldn't blame on someone else. Oh, she tried all right. Claiming I sent her enough selfies and snapchats she didnt need to take a picture of me. I didn't buy it, and I ended it for what felt like the 300th time. Only this time it stuck and was glad it did.

As bad of a place as I was from that relationship, it wasn't the worse place I've been. Seven years ago on September 15th I was laying on my dirty, broken, beat up couch.

I know this because I spent better part of a year there. I'd lost my job more than a year prior. My severely emotionally abusive exwife I'd been with for a dozen years, had left with the kids in March. So I spent my days on the couch, alone, broke and unemployed, in a three bedroom house, with a basement, two car garage, and pole barn, located outside city limits a small town with a population of only 1200, next nearest city was a fifteen minute drive away through cornfields the whole way. I lived so far in the country only three other houses were visable from my property, and not becauae of hills or trees, because there were none of those either. To say I was isolated was an understatment. It was my own hell on earth. Sometimes I'd go weeks without seeing another human being besides the ex and the kids. My ex had battered me and put me down for every single thing I did, I couldn't even make Ramen noodles right according to her.

When you get put down for everything you do, you stop doing everything. It is more sane to not exert the effort if the results are going to be the same regardless. So for a while I stopped doing everything, hunting for a job, cleaning the house, getting dressed, eating, I put all my effort into taking care of the kids when I had them and it was exhausting and I questioned my ability to do so every minute. She was gone, but the voice inside my head was hers and it did nothing but constantly berate me. She damn near killed me by pushing me into such a deep depression I nearly died of apathy. I remember thinking to myself more than once that I couldn't even find enough motivation or energy to get off the couch to kill myself. Still, if I were to say one nice thing about her, it was that she took plenty of pictures of me and our children.

Maybe it was having all those pictures my exwife took etched into my brain, or maybe I hadn't really looked myself in the mirror in a while, either way I didn't recognize myself in that photo on Facebook. That guy I was jealous of in the picture of the FOI, was me.

That had been the exact picture I was looking for. Sure, the glasses are newish, and I rarely wear them, my beard is longer than its ever been and my hair shorter than its ever been and I've lost 65+ lbs since my exwife left, half of which was in the last six months, but none of that was why I didn't recognize myself. That thing on my face, it's a ... smile. A real smile, not a forced smile for a selfie or a snapchat. Not the smile of someone enjoying the company of the FOI and the person behind the camera, although I absolutely was. This was a smile of someone who is actually happy, and not just happy in the moment. I didn't recognize the happiness or the confidence or the strength I saw on my own face. The calmness was unfamiliar. This was a face I'm not sure if I'd ever seen, even before meeting the exwife. I have a face worth being jealous over? I look attractive?!? When the hell did this happen!?!

That one, innocent picture, opened my eyes to how far I've come, in the past seven years, in the past year and especially in the past six months since my ... "change in lifestyle." I'm good, But I still have a way to go. My goal now is to look at those pictures from seven years ago and not reccognize that person. I'm looking forward to that.

One Of These Days

I'm feeling pretty good. It's now only a matter of time before the divorce is final. Regardless of the outcome, the fact that it's over. The only thing to do now is wait for the judge to render the decision.

On top of that, I got a second date with Girl #3 this weekend which I'm very excited about. Sure just a few months ago I said I'd never do long distance again, but an hour is right on the edge of long distance, so it's not. Also, that was before the drunk too, who if nothing else reminded me maybe a little travel might be worth it. So this weekend we're going to a 24 Hour bad SciFi movie marathon. So she's pretty cool.

Speaking of the drunk, I've made arrangements to pick up the last of my stuff off her front porch after work. No interaction, no talking, nothing. 

With that said when I went into work that Wednesday morning, I was feeling pretty damn good, that chapter is over in my life and I'm looking forward to the future. Work's not satisfying, but I think I've carved my own place there. I'm being cross trained on something new every week so they seem to think I have a place there too. And as of tomorrow, I've been at this job six months. That's the longest I've had a job in four years. So I thought nothing of it when my boss called me into his office, at least until I saw the HR rep sitting there.

I tried to come up with any other reason for this meeting in his office clinging onto hope as he started in on his predetermined speech. 

"You've missed a lot of work." 

"I've never called in sick. I had to go to court and I missed another day for a funeral, I gave you as much notice as I could, in some cases more than a month notice. I always had documentation." 

"Still that's not all. You just don't seem to be as invested in this job as everyone else."

What does that even mean? Have been I as invested as I could have been? No way. Between the depression, divorce, death and drunk the past six months have kept me rather preoccupied. I know that, but I've always done my best to do my best printing best church sheet music. Even though I'm Jewish and have no real emotional investment in songs about Jesus. Wait ... is that what he means? Did I let it slip that I'm Jewish? Is that what this is about? I guess if I didn't let it slip, it could be what he means about not as invested anyway. 

He prattles on about this and that and company philosophy. I know I'm not the model employee, but I've done nothing wrong enough to be terminated. I stare at the floor for a moment, then without lifting my head I glare at him. It seems obvious this child of a boss has never fired anyone before. And I'm sure my unwavering eye contact isn't helping him any. He turns it over to the HR person as quickly as he could then. She explains all the legal crap with insurance and other nonsense. I don't know how they expect anyone to retain that information seconds after being fired. I'm then escorted to my work station to gather my belongings. I have one steel water bottle and a phone charger. The HR person asks if I need to get anything from the locker room. I didn't even know there was a locker room. I walk out empty handed, never invested enough to bring anything of value to work and leave it there. 

I go home. This feeling of complete hopelessness I've grown too accustomed too returns. This crappy day ends with a drunken profanity ridden text for forgetting to pick up my stuff after work as I promised the drunk.

The next day I ponder the upcoming weekend. I briefly toy with the idea of pretending everything was okay to just plow forward with the date. But morals interfer. Then I text Girl #3. 

"What's up?"

"Just got off work, about to go get our tickets for this weekend" 

"Don't!"

I realize as soon as I hit send how terrible that sounded so I pick up the phone and call her. I explain everything. I tell her as much as I want to go see her this weekend, with no income, I'd be too stressed about the money situation to enjoy her company I should. She offers to come to me for the weekend instead. I accept. 

Come Monday morning I'm feeling kind of okay about not having a job because of a pretty good weekend. I start doing all the things I need to do for my unemployment. I file for unemployment. I file for food stamps. I start applying for jobs. This time I do something a little different. I look for jobs in Capital City where this girl lives. Don't read too much into that. I've already moved all over this state the past few years, and Capital City isn't that far away and I don't know why I haven't been looking there before. Plus my other sister lives there. So if I wound up there, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Over the next two months I'd get a few interviews up that way, and I'd see her each time. But eventually I just couldn't maintain a relationship, even as just friends. I had nothing to talk about positive and doing the whole "my life sucks" thing just doesn't make the best first impression as friends and absolutely not romantically, It got longer and longer between visits, and longer and longer between conversations until there were just neither. Given the choice between doing the poor me routine, and letting the fruit wilt on the vine. I let it wilt.

Yet my life just kept getting worse. There was a miscommunication about my food stamp debt card and it took almost two months for me to see any of that aid. My unemployment claim was denied because I was fired, which it took them a month to let me know and another month for the appeal process to kick in. I sold blood every chance I got. But money got so tight for a while I felt so guilty for "wasting" money every time I ate, I only tried to only eat on days before I sold blood. At one point I went three days and only ate mulberries off the tree in the side yard. I felt life slipping away from me. I was afraid to leave the house, I had no money for gas. I was afraid to have friendships. Even I didn't believe life had been this unkind to me anymore. I must be asking for it somehow.

As if rub it in my face, when I'm already laying facedown in the dirt. In the span of two weeks, two girls I used to date, the Librarian and the Girl with the Amazing Smile both get married and in between those two weddings, my almost ExWife give birth. Normally I wouldn't have cared about these event, but I just felt so alone, it felt like a gigantic cinder block dropped on my head. 

My situation feels hopeless. I apply to anything and everything I can.I apply all around the state in my field. I apply for anything I can local. Most retail places want me to work weekends and I can't that with my kids every other weekend. I finally put in with a temp agency that finds an assignment for me. It's a forty five minute drive in the wrong direction, it's second shift, it's only $10 an hour and it's the only choice I have. I go in for a paid three hour orientation. It's another three weeks before they actually start me though.

So I keep job hunting in case something better comes along in the mean time. It doesn't of course. But during my wait I finally get my official divorce papers. I get my kids every other weekend, which is what I was fighting for mainly, and she has to meet halfway. But pretty much everything else was against me. It's full of just mistakes, like actual factual mistakes. I'd been trying to get money out of her for what we borrowed from my parents for a septic system and through out it calls it a water heater. It also says our halfway meeting point is a a toll road exit approximately and hour due west of her location, I live 2.5 hours due south of her. It makes no sense. Luckily we both agree to that and find a new meeting spot, but I can't help but feel like it's going to come back to haunt me. This is what passes as good news for me anymore. 

The job finally wants me to start, it is assembling and packaging fast food hamburger boxes. I hate it. There's nothing I like about the job, but I refuse to do anything but my best. The factory is hot and it's the middle of summer. The first night there I nearly pass out on the line from heat stroke, but I refuse to let both my trainer and the supervisor send me to break. It's hard work. It's fast paced. It's loud and dirty. I work hard. I'm eager to learn. I'm not going to lose another job. Normally the training time is six weeks, but I've worked so hard by lunch break on Monday of week four my supervisor tells me I'm fully trained, then adds almost as an afterthought "By the way, there's overtime this weekend." 

I thank her, but decline because I have my kids this weekend. She tells me it's mandatory. I tell her I guess I could do it just this once, have my parents watch the kids or something. She shakes her head. "once you're trained, mandatory overtime is like three out of four weekends of the month." I tell her I can't do that. I explain to her how my kids live two hours away and how working second shift I only get 36 hours with them every other weekend and I wasn't going to give up eight hours of that to work, (plus another hour and a half to drive to and from work). Just great. I worked extra hard only to have that screw me over.

"Well, I certainly understand that. But if you don't show up, you'll be terminated. Company policy."

The next day on my way into work, I stop by the temp agency and explain the situation to them. I remind them I specifically said I couldn't work weekends. thier response is to tell me that I can't even finish out the week. If I'm planning on quitting, they can't in good conscious let me go into work for their client anymore, effective immediately. "I'm not planning on quitting!" I protest, "I'm planning on them firing me for not showing up this weekend which I said in the beginning I couldn't work." Eventually they decide I can finish out the week. My supervisor tries to talk me several times into coming in on Saturday. Suggests maybe I could get away with calling off just this once. "Why would I do that? I'll just get fired the next weekend there's a conflict."

Saturday I went and got my kids. I didn't go back to that job and I didn't feel bad even for a minute.

Even when I found out later that in order to qualify for unemployment, you had to work for an employer for at least six weeks, which would have been right up until that next weekend there would have been a conflict.

This is my life now.

Never Ever Getting Back Together

The calls keep coming, the texts keep coming, it's been about two weeks since I ended it for good and she hasn't left me alone yet.  I don't respond, they keep coming, day after day. Sometimes it's the standard "I miss you." Sometimes it's insults and I assume she's drunk when she sends those. Sometimes it's "You're going to regret this." The thing is, I already regret it. Slowly they become less frequent, eventually they stop. As soon as they do though, I miss them. I miss her. It'd be easy to fix. I ended it. Though common sense reminds me why exactly I ended it. I had to call the police on her, because she was drunk, in my car with my kids.

Still I feel bad. RIC needs help and I ran out on her. I don't see that much difference between her problems now, and my problems back when my wife left me. I was depressed and rather than helping me she left me. I struggle with this. I'm pretty sure I made the right decision, but I can't seem to show my work on this problem. I turn to an unlikely source for advice, the Librarian. Sure we dated for quite awhile, but at one point, before all that, she was one of my closest advisers. Besides who better to give you relationship advice than someone who you were actually once in a relationship with? 

"You have the ability to see the good in people they can't even see in themselves" she tells me. No argument there. That's kind of a flaw of mine, but if one must have a flaw that's one I can live with. She also tells me how she had an ex-boyfriend who had a problem with alcohol. He knew it, she knew it, everyone knew it, and he tried to deal with it, but he couldn't even say what the problem was, let alone beat it. 

Damn. She's never said it, I've never said it. She's an alcoholic. And the difference between me leaving her now, and my wife leaving me back then? I was asking for, I was begging for help. RIC is not ready for help. Not ready to quit. Not ready to even say the word "alcoholic."

I still don't get it though. How could she choose crawling into a bottle over being with me? I want desperately to understand this. It seems like the logical thing to try to understanding this is to try to get inside her head. Okay, maybe getting shitty ass drunk alone at home to try to understand her thought process wasn't logical, and it didn't make me feel better. It just made me drunk and sadder and lonelier. Before I passed out though I found a pair of her earrings hanging from the shelf I store my booze on. I'd forgotten she'd even been to my place, let alone been there long enough to take off and forget earrings.

I ponder just throwing them away, but somehow that seems dishonest. I ponder mailing them back to her, but damn it, I like that I have an excuse to see her. So one day after work, completely unannounced I go over to her place. I figure if she's not there I'll leave them in her mailbox, if she's drunk, I'll hand them over to her and leave, if she's there and sober ... who knows. Taking her back is not an option though.

She's there and surprised to see me. I hand her the earrings and she invites me in. I'm not sure why, but I go in. I don't take my coat off, I don't venture farther into the house than the entry way. She asks me to come home. I tell her I've been living at my home for the past two weeks. She wants me to come back. She tells me she'll go to AA, I can have access to her sponsor if that's what it takes. I tell her it's too late for that. She begs me to just give her a second chance.

"A second chance?!? I already gave you a second chance ... and a third ... and a fourth!"

She asks for another.

"No! It's too late! You were drunk in front of my kids! I had to call the cops! Then I had to explain to my nutjob ex-wife why my kids were talking about the police!" 

"Well, you could have handled it differently. You could have left me alone in the car, it wasn't like I was going to do anything other than pass out. You could have told your ex-wife I went out with the girls and had one cocktail too many before we got in the car. You could of ..." I shake my head,

"Or here's the best way it could have been handled ... you could have not been drunk! That's the appropriate way to handle that situation!"

"I promise it'll never happen again."

"You're right, it'll never happen again because you're not going to see my kids again." 

Silence. Eventually it's broken by her apologizing.

"You're right. That shouldn't have happened. I'm sorry."

 I purse my tongue.

"You know through this whole thing" I say "you've not once said what the problem is."

"What?"

"You've danced around it, but you've never actually said it."

"Said what?"

"What your problem is!"

"I'm an alcoholic ...  alright?!?"  I can't help but feel this is a small victory.  

"What's it going to take for you to get sober? Gonna accidentally leave the front door open one day and your beloved dog run into the street and get hit by a car? Do you have to lose another job because of drinking, and then lose the house because of that? Are you going to have to get in a car wreck and kill someone to stop?"

I have her in tears now. I feel bad, but if I worry about making her feel bad, perhaps I'll never get through to her. 

"I can do this, I did it for for 67 days."

"No," I countered, "you *failed* after 67 days. I believe you can do it, I do or I wouldn't be standing here having this conversation with you. But I can't fix you. I can't be responsible for your success or failure. I can't be responsible for your sobriety. Neither can anyone else. This is a journey you need to take alone. I can't make you into who you're supposed to be, you need to find yourself, and find yourself sober. I can't watch the hurt you need to go through to get to where you need. I'll want to stop the hurt and stopping you from getting hurt is stopping you from getting better."

Dejected, she glares at the floor.

"I guess that's why AA says no relationships for the first year." 

"Then do it." I plead with her. "Get in AA follow the program, get sober."  

"I don't need AA. I can do this on my own. I'm not going to live alone in this big house for a year."

She's right. She can't do it, not in this house. Living by yourself in a four bedroom house, yeah, I might drink too. I tell her to just sell the damn house then. Move in with her mom, her sister, her aunt or just move into an apartment. She refuses. The house was all she salvaged from her marriage. She claims that if she got rid of her house, then the whole thing meant nothing.

We talk some more, I never budge. She tells me more and more. She tells me the real causes of her drinking. We talk and talk and talk. The entire time I'm still in my coat, still standing by the front door, ready to leave. Finally I just don't have anything else to say. I say I should be going.

"Please don't leave me," she begs "You're supposed to love me unconditionally." 

I don't know what to say to that. I could pick apart that statement so many damn ways, but I don't. None of that would change anything. So I give the simplest, easiest, and hardest to argue with response. "Whether or not my love for you is unconditional, my ability to be with you is not."

I open the door to leave. The door hangs open. My hand rests on the door knob. They say don't turn around, but I did. 

"I ... I ..." I stammer.

I want to tell her that I'll always be there for her, if she ever really needs me, but I can't. I'm walking out the door and out of her life.

"AA says no relationships for a year, I can't promise you where I will be in a year, but I can promise you I'll check on you in a year. I hope you'll have good news for me then."

I step out into the cold and pull the door shut behind me.

I never saw her again,

This is my life now.

We Could Have Had It All

It kinda slipped out. I hadn't planned on saying "I love you" to RIC. But now that I had, no holding back now. I felt like Buddy the Elf. "I'm in love, I'm in love and I don't care who knows." If been holding back because it was clear she'd been withholding something from me, but now that I had enough pieces of the puzzle to put together a picture that wasn't so scary to me, no excuses. There's no bad thing waiting to happen anymore.

I'm on cloud nine the whole next day at work. I can't wait to get home and see her, spend time with her, do anything, do nothing, with her. 

I unlock the front door and hang up my jacket, and turn to see a half liquor empty bottle on the coffee table. RIC emerges from the kitchen and greets me. I try to ignore the bottle. "It's a leftover from girls night last night I just didn't see, it's not even hers" I tell myself.

"Come sit with me" she exclaims as she half falls into the couch.

"I'm not sure I want too."

"Why?" I swallow hard and pace around the room. "I'm just not sure I want too." I plop down in the recliner. She's acting funny. I can't even make myself think the word. I'm so happy and if I let myself think that it could come to an end. 

She excuses herself to go to the restroom. I try to come up with some logical explanation for her behavior and the bottle other than the one I don't want it to be when I hear a large, loud, drunken crash. 

I sit there for as long as I can without being a total asshole. I've neither moved nor spoken when I hear her calling my name. I get up slowly. Inside the bathroom I see her tangled in the shower curtain, laying in the bathtub, on the other side of the room the toilet lays in pieces, water spraying everywhere. 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's drunk. She told me last night about losing a job because she was drunk, a DUI and 67 days in rehab and let me think it was all in the past. Today I come home and she's smashed.

I turn the water off, and help her out of the tub. I give her the once over to make sure no jagged shard of the toilet has cut her, she's not wounded, but does have a nice bruise the length of her back.

I help her into bed and get her an ice pack. As soon as she closes her eyes I pack an overnight bag to go home, My real home. I don't know what I'm doing yet, other than not spending the night here. I need to leave. I need to process. 

Before I leave though I text her best friend. I thank her for suggesting to RIC that she tell me about her past incidents with alcohol. I then tell her I came home from work and she was drunk, and she broke the toilet, and I put her to bed. I tell her she was hurt but I left. I say if she felt inclined to check on RIC I'd appreciate it. If RIC asks, I'll be back tomorrow, but if I'll do more than collect my stuff, I didn't know. Her best friend is responsive, but her tone almost indicates she's tired of this happening.

The next day after work I go by her house. We talk. She offers up an excuse "I had a funeral for a former patient to go to, then I had to deal with my ex, it was a just a shitty day, so I decided to have a drink." 

At best this was a terrible idea. "You told me about your past and then you're drunk when I get home the next day what am I supposed to think?"

We talk for a while. Eventually she offers up "If that's what it takes to keep you, I'll never have another drink." 

"That's not good enough, I'm not good enough" I say it, it's the right thing to say, I want it to be wrong though. God knows I want to be that important to her.

"You're right" she says, she looks as of to remember "I also need to quit for myself, my health, my family and my friends." 

I know that was the correct answer, I don't know if she believes it, or was simply reciting something drilled into her head in rehab. It sounds like the later, but I want to be happy.

"You can't leave me" she pleads and she sits in my lap, "I'm going to marry you."

I'm staring right through her at this point. Hoping if I stare hard enough she'll shut up.

"Want me to tell you about our wedding?" 

She's coming off as totally crazy now. If she shuts up now maybe there's something to salvage. If she tries to sell me on the fantasy of our wedding in a desperate attempt to get me to stay, it's over, unless by some miracle she gets every detail right.

Since I'm a guy I've given no thought to my wedding. Girls dream of their wedding and plan for years. Sometimes the groom is the last thing they decide on, and he just gets shoe-horned in.

What she describes to me was a fantasy wedding alright. She described my fantasy wedding. As if I had been planning my wedding since I was young and she was the last thing missing, shoe horned in and made to fit. Wasn't a hint of her taste in anything. Not broad brush strokes either, specific detail. I don't know if she's just able to read me that well, or if our tastes are that similar. I do know this ... I'm not quite done yet. I get my bag from the car.

The next week is back to the some wonderful, comfortable routine we'd established. One mistake shouldn't end a relationship. Other than this one bump, it's been a great ride. 

Several weeks ago she'd suggested going to a strip club together. I declined, but only because Jenna Jameson was going to be there this weekend and that was a much better excuse to go. When your woman wants to take you to a strip club, you say yes. Saturday rolls around and we head to the strip club. It's our first real outing since she told me her secrets and while it wouldn't sound like it, a pretty good first choice. In this state, full nudity means no alcohol licence. So she can't be tempted to drink. 

What we failed to account for though was that the club would be packed and there's nothing more awkward that trying to navigate tightly packed rows of men, possibly sporting wood. She suggests we go to a nearby topless bar until Jenna's show time, then return. Works for me. 

What I didn't realize is that topless bars do allow alcohol. I'm immediately parinoid about her ability to say no. She offers to go buy us sodas at the bar. I wonder why she doesn't wait for the waitress to come around, but decide if this is going to work, I need to act like I trust her, even if the voice inside my head tells me not too. Plus she's got the cash. She tells me I can have an alcoholic drink if I want, I decline. "I wouldn't drink in front of you."

The night wears on and each drink she buys is further and further down the bar. Around round four, she asks me if she can have "just one." I agree, but as soon as she leaves, I taste the ice of her round three drink. 

Damn. Why did I have to be right? I'm livid, but I put on a happy face. We'll be headed out in a few,

I'm driving her car, when I "accidentally" make a wrong turn into a parking lot. I turn the car around and then park it. 

RIC asks "What's going on?"

In a calm forceful voice I ask "So how many did you really have?" I hope she tells me the truth. It's bad that she's sneaking drinks, but it'll be worse to lie to me.

"Just the one you said I could have."

 "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I wouldn't lie to you."

 "I tasted the ice on the drink before that."

 "Oh ... I thought that one tasted funny."

This doesn't even sound like a good lie. I notice movement in the rear view mirror as I lay into her.

"Don't lie. I'm more mad about the lying than the drinks."

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to ruin our evening. I was having fun." 

"I was too, until I was lied too."

We fight, and just as we're running out of steam, the movement in the rear view mirror turns on it's red and blue flashing lights. Annoying, but I'm sober and in the drivers' seat, so convince the cop we're not caseing the business we're currently parked in front of and we'll be on our way.

Except I'm driving her car and that DUI she had, she never paid the fine for. We're asked to leave the car so they can impound it. I can't even look at her at this point let alone talk to her.While she's on the phone with a cab company I'm pacing the far end of the parking lot trying to keep warm. I'm dressed for a strip club, not snow flurries. 

The cab is on it's way. She's trying to talk to me, but I can only stare into the distance over her shoulder and shake my head. The cop calls out "Ma'am, we're going to tow your car now, but after a search of the vehicle we found an empty beer can and a bottle of vodka under the passenger seat. You'll want to remove those before you drive the vehicle again."

I'm livid. We stand there in the dark, in the snow waiting for the cab. She wants to talk, I can barely think straight. She waits under the lot light. I pace, flashing her angry glances. 

Eventually I realize as ill prepared for the weather as I was, she was worse. I walk over to her and hand her my hoodie without saying a word. I pace some more. Eventually I have no choice but stand by her for warmth. She wraps her arms and my hoodie around me. I accept her body heat but not her warmth.

The cab ride to her place is silent. When we get to her place I inform her that due to it being 3 a.m. I wouldn't be leaving, but I would be sleeping in the guest room. She protests and attempts to negotiate. I tell her she's lucky I'm staying at all and I retreat to the cold drafty bedroom.

The next morning I wake to discover a space heater in my room. My phone has been plugged into to charger. There's an extra blanket at the foot of my bed. It's adorable at first, but I remembered I had locked the door. 

She's already awake. We talk, it's productive. I feel like I've been mislead, she talked about her problems as if they were in the past and they weren't. Maybe she didn't mislead me, maybe it's what I wanted to believe. I mean there's a difference between going through a rough time and drinking so much it gets away from you and being a full blown chemically dependant alcoholic. It seems to me she's not an alcoholic, I mean she did drink alcohol often, but I'd only seen her drunk once. If she was an alcoholic she's be drunk every time ... I think. "This isn't the type of problem you can solve in a week" she tells me. That seems fair. Plus I'm still not ready to give up on her. 

With the incident behind us, things go back to being wonderful. We even have my parents over for dinner Sunday night so she can meet them. I wanna take some of the pressure off of her for that whole benefit/Easter weekend. She does great. I thought about giving her the complete Wikipedia page on each of my parents to properly prepare her, but given the recent term oil I wanted to see of she'd sink or swim. She swam like Michael Phelps. 

The only time she veered onto deep water was when she mentioned she went with me to get the kids once, and she thought it was important for her to do so that "as their step mother it'd be important to for everyone to get along as a family ... Not that that's going to happen ... Anytime soon." Part of me was embarrassed because saying that so early into a relationship is taboo, the other part of me was like "Wow she just accidentally said that to my parents, she's really seriously into me that much isn't she?"

Wednesday rolls around and she can get her car back. I'm hesitant to remedy the consequences of her drinking and tell her so, on the other hand I'm her boyfriend, so I take her to the impound lot on my way to work. 

I get home from work and hang my jacket up and déjà vu. There's an empty vodka bottle on the kitchen counter. She didn't even make it nine hours with a car without drinking. I find her passed out in her bed. I'm done. I polish off the remainder of a pizza in the fridge. I'm stalling, I'm hoping something will change if I just wait. I go into the bedroom and pack my things and I don't do it quietly either. I'm hoping she'll wake up. She's out cold. I leave my dresser drawer open. I don't want there to be any mystery that I'm gone for good. I load my car and head back inside. I take her house key off my key ring and place it on the counter next to the bottle. No, that's too subtle. I place it dangling in the neck of the empty bottle.

I still don't want to leave. I pull out her laptop and log into facebook, still stalling. I see her best friend online, and send her a message.

"I came home from work today and she was drunk again, please talk me into staying."

"If you leave, make sure she knows why."

I say my goodbyes to the dog before locking it up for the night. Then head to the bedroom to say goodbye to her. I don't want to abandon someone who needs help so badly, but it seems she's not ready to be helped yet. It's be nice if I had a sign that leaving was the right thing. I tell her I love her and as I lean over to kiss her on the cheek goodbye, my foot hits a larger, but just as empty vodka half hidden under the bed. That'll do. 

This chapter of my life should have ended there but it didn't. I failed to unfriend her on Facebook. So Saturday, St Patrick's Day, when she said she was going out to a bar I freaked. I ended it in hopes that it'd be a wake up call to her it obviously wasn't. I have my kids so I'm at my parents', I beg her to come over and talk with me instead of going out. Eventually she agrees.

We talk for hours. About her drinking. About the real emotional causes of it. We start to outline a plan to maybe get back together, contingent largely on her sobriety. Eventually though it gets so late we're a little slap happy, so I suggest we adjourn until tomorrow. She agrees, but not before asking me to move in with her. She tells me how she can make two of the empty bedrooms into rooms for the kids and how great it'd be. I have no doubt she's sincere about it either. But we're not even technically a couple at this point. I tell her I can't, not yet. I tell her it's because I'm sure my ex-wife would use it against me in the divorce. That's true, but not the real reason. She asks me if she can go with me to take the kids back tomorrow. I agree, they adore her, and the long ride back will give us a chance to talk. Even offers to let us use her car. 

The next day I arrive at her house and RIC's outside waiting for is. The kids are excited and start telling her every detail of their lives over the past week since they've seen her. I move the car seats to her car, and buckle them in, adjust the drivers seat and we're ready to go ... Except where's RIC? I head inside,

"What are you doing?"

"Where are the kids? They wanted to see the dog ..."

"We don't have time for this, my ex is psycho if I'm late!"

At this point the large dog knocks her over. I tell her to go get in the car while I wrangle the dog up, and put it away so we can leave. The dog safely secure I head for the front door, which is hanging wide open. Oh and she left her purse by the front door on the floor, I'll be nice and bring it to her. How could she forget her ... Oh no. My eyes dart to the kitchen. I flip over the bottle cap on the counter, Absolut. Fuck!

I head out to her car. I open the passenger car door, "Get out." At this point I just want to confirm the glaring suspicion. She refuses this demand twice. "I can smell it on you" I growl through gritted teeth. "No, you can't." That's all the conformation I need. 

"All right kids, gotta get out. We can't take RIC's car." They're confused, and protest because hers is "better." "Not today it's not" I move all the car seats and rebuckle them in. She's sitting in her car sulking. So I head into the house to grab the few items I forgot last time. I check the bedroom there's an empty beer can in the bedroom. I spot two empty wine bottles in the kitchen trash. Then I spot a giant nearly full $50 bottle of Crown Royal in the kitchen cabinet. I can't stop her from drinking, but I can stop her from drinking *that bottle*, and I dump it down the sink. I grab my stuff and head to my car. 

She's in my car! Is she expecting me to take her with me? I repeat my earlier demand. "Get out of the car!" She refuses ... I don't know how to make her either. I reach down and grab her keys and throw them across the yard hoping maybe she'd be just drunk enough to chase them. She's not. I again tell her to exit my vehicle. She again refuses. I try pulling her out, but she's decided to fight me and won't budge. "Get out of MY CAR!!!" She again refuses, staring straight forward as if ignoring me will make her win. I'm mad, I'm furious. I grab her arm, I brace one foot against the frame of my car and prepare to yank with all my might forcefully removing her from my car. One! Two! And ...

My eyes lock with my daughter's in the back seat. She's giving me that "Daddy what's happening" look. I let go of RIC's arm and fall on my ass rather than try to pull on her. I put my head between my knees and start to cry out of frustration. "Please don't make me call the police to make you leave."

"You won't do it."

I had to prove her wrong.  As soon as I start talking to the 911 operator, she voluntarily leaves the vehicle and heads inside her house with a sigh of contempt. She doesn't pick up her keys ... Or shut the doors on her vehicle which are still hanging open. 

The cops show up a minute later. I've never felt more white trash than when I had to explain the police that I wanted their help in removing my drunk girlfriend from my car so I could get my kids back to to wife on time. I offer to file a report, but since they witnessed nothing they can't do anything. I was hoping maybe yet another dealing with the police might be a wake up call. But who am I kidding? 

The drive to my ex-wife's is taxing to say the least. I'm emotionally drained. To top it off the kids are both asking what's going on. They want to know why their/my friend isn't coming with us and why the police came. I explain to them that she is sick, and shouldn't be around kids when she's sick. Daddy had to call the police because she was so sick she couldn't remember that. 

I get to the Ex's house and walk them inside, usually I hug them at the door and leave. I ask the kids to go in the living room so I can talk to their mother. 

"So RIC was supposed to come with us, but when I showed up she was drunk. This has been a recurring problem. She got in the car with the kids and wouldn't leave. I had to call the police to make her leave. She was never behind the wheel, she was only alone with them for a moment. They were never in any danger. There's nothing to worry about, and there never will be because I'm done with her forever now. I'm only telling you this because the kids saw me call the police and had a lot of questions and while I answered them, if they mentioned it to you I didn't want you to worry." 

I sigh and wait for the well deserved (for a change) lecture on how I need to be more selective of who I let around out children, How I've failed to protect my children, how I just in general fucked up.

"Okay, glad you told me. I would have been really mad if I'd heard about this from the kids instead of you."

A perfectly calm and rational adult response, not at all what I expected. 

This is my life now. 

You and Me and the Bottle Make Three

Why didn't I say it back? Am I afraid? Or is there legitimate reason to thing there's something not quite right. I don't know, but I know I need to find out before I can use that four letter "L" word back. I don't feel like I can wait for it to work its self out either. I need to ask. I put it off though because if I'm right, it might end. I don't want it to end. I give myself a week. 

Thursday night I do my regularly scheduled call with the kids. My daughter mentions to me that tomorrow night is a father / daughter dance at her school and since I can't take her my ExWife's father is. After I'm done talking to the kids, I ask to speak to the Soon-To-Be-ExWife. I ask her about this father/daughter dance, since this is the first I've heard about it. She won't even give me the time or place. Says if I can't pick up the kids on Friday nights, I can't go to a dance either. She's right that I don't pick up kids on Friday nights, I usually work second shift and don't get off till 11pm. This week however I'm on that goofy earlier scheduled training shift, and depending on when it starts, I might be able to be there in time for it. She screams and yells at me "No, you don't get to pick! You either get them every Friday or no Fridays!" Congratulations, you missed a legitimate chance to make me feel like a bad father because I might not have been able to go. Instead, you were a selfish bitch who withheld information from me, thus making it impossible for me to go, and made it all on you.

RIC had disappeared into the kitchen for most of this, while she didn't hear the actual conversation, she could hear the elevated volume. "That didn't sound like it went well." I recall the finer points of the argument, and audibly remind myself that the only chance I have to have a civilized discussion with her is to have it in writing. RIC's heard some of the stories about my ex by now, but this is the first she's had proof they're more than just stories told from the point of view of an angry ex.

RIC tells me about her best friend, and how her husband is on such bad terms with his ex-wife, that eventually her best friend stepped in, and now on all matters relating to the kids, he's not involved in the discussion. Just her best friend and her best friend's husband's exwife. "That's great for him" I say "think she'll deal with my ex-wife for me?" "No, I just meant maybe sometime down the road, I'd deal with her instead of you."

*crickets*

I don't even know what the say to that. I wouldn't wish what my ex-wife puts me through on my worst enemy, and she's volunteering to take her off my hands for me? Do she know what she'd be getting herself into? We've known each other for an amount of time that can be best measured in days and weeks ... wow! That's big. It's huge. It's too soon. 

"Maybe someday, not quite yet though." I tell her. "Yeah, that's what I meant. It's too soon now" she says with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

Friday night we're sitting around watching TV, I'm wishing I could be at that dance instead. I'm lamenting this fact, when RIC asks me if I'd like some company on the five hour round trip to pick up the kids. My wife refuses to provide any transportation so it's a tremendous time and money suck. It's draining. But I do it for my kids. It hadn't even occurred to me to ask for her company, but it's welcomed. We leave early the next morning. With company the time passes quicker. 

Upon arriving at the ex's house, RIC asks me "So do you want me to go in with you?" I'd been pondering that the whole drive. "I'm not going to ask you to come in, it's up to you. I could honestly go either way ... However, she's less likely to throw a stupid fit with someone else around."

We go to the door and knock and wait. Knock again. Finally one of the kids comes and unlocks the door runs away giggling. It's some sort of game the kids play. It's also a game the ex plays. She won't answer the door, makes the kids unlock it, so it's on me to invite myself in or stand outside for who knows how long without even acknowledgement I'm there. I can't help but feel this sooner or later will be called "breaking and entering" by her. 

We enter, and as is typical we speak to the kids and not each other. She's on the computer and won't even look in my direction this time. "Com'on kids get ready! Your dad is three minutes early so you need to hurry up and get ready cause he's too impatient to wait in the driveway until it's his time."

I think she can hear my eyes rolling, so she finally turns around with contempt ready to lay into me. That's when she realized that there was another adult in the house. Suddenly she's all sunshine and rainbows. RIC's the bigger person, and introduces herself. The ex shakes her hand, if you can call it that, like a limp wristed, palm down aristocrat burdened by allowing physical contact with a commoner. 

Finally the kids are ready, we load up the car and make the 150 minute drive to RIC's. We grab some lunch and then digest on the couch watching SpongeBob. My boy climbs into my lap. RIC's laying with her dog snuggled up to her. I give my daughter a hard time because she's the only one not cuddling with someone, fully expecting her to come and compete with her brother for my lap. Instead she crawls the length on the couch, and plops down on top of RIC. 

Damn, I guess I need not worry about if they'll get along or not. The stars seem to be aligning. With all the shit I've been though. Damn it, I deserve this kid of relationship. I've tried to have realistic expectations for a relationship. This one seems to exceed my most unrealistic fantasies for a relationship. All this suffering for the past few years has been worth it if this is my reward. Is this karma leveling out? I'm happy. I'm ready to abandon all my fears. 

We make plans to go to a children's museum with the kids the next day. I head to my parents' with the kids. That night RIC calls me. She's mumbling and incoherent and then hangs up unexpectedly. I don't know what to make of this, is she sick and trying to ask for help? Is there some medical condition she has that she hadn't told me about? Before I figure out what to do she calls back. 

"Are you drunk?" I finally ask. 
"Yeah."
"Go sleep it off and I'll see you in the morning."

We have a great time the next morning. The kids are rambunctious, but well behaved. For not having kids of her own, RIC's incredibly interactive with them. When I'm around other peoples kids I'm reserved. She playing with them and entertaining them. Not overstepping boundaries, but not leary of them either. We go to a late lunch before I take the kids back. 

RIC apologizes for not going with me to take the kids back. Her best friend wants a girls night. While I'd like to have company, I certainly don't require it. I tell her to have fun and I'd see her in five hours. 

When I arrive back home, her home that is, I ask her how her girls night was. She tells me it was good, but we need to talk. No conversation that starts with "we need to talk" is a happy conversation.

Her best friend had strongly suggested that she tell me something. Okay ... obviously what she has to tell me is weighing greatly on her mind, so I'm as patient and as calm as I can pretend to be. In my head I'm panicking. This is the other horrible thing in the back of my mind I've been waiting for. She can't even look at me when she says it. 

"I got a DUI last year."
That's it? 
"Okay, Obviously not a good thing, but not a deal breaker." 
"There's more" she tells me "that job I quit last year? Really I got fired for showing up drunk." 
"Oh" I say,  this is a bit worse, and will take more time to mentally process, but slowly, "We've all made mistakes." 
Somehow she doesn't look relieved. 
"That's not all" she tells me. By now she's actually crying, "I spent 67 days in rehab for alcohol." 

This is almost good news to me. I mean if she did a stint in rehab, it's in the past. everything she said was past tense. It's in the past. 

"I'm glad you told me," I said "I was afraid I was going to have to ask. I had clues ... I just didn't know what they added up too. When I was Facebook stalking you when we first met you had several posts counting the number of days sober ... And the AA schedule taped to the side of your fridge. That was a pretty big clue. After last night I was worried and needed more than just hints of what the story was. I was afraid it was ... current." 

"Last night?" 
"You called me last night when you were drunk ... Twice." 
"I'm sorry, I don't remember that. There's no excuse for that." 

We sit in silence for and I put together the pieces of her life before we met. She split from her ex-husband and, had a very tough time of it. Self medicated for her depression. After losing her job and getting a DUI she went to rehab, part because it was needed, part to avoid jail. 

She breaks the silence. "Are you staying?" 

"Yeah, I'm staying. It's in the past. We all have our pasts. Good or bad, your past brought you here to me, and right now I'm happy." 

"I don't understand how you're so understanding" she tells me.

I shrug. "I guess it's because I love you."

This is my life now.

Why Were Your Eyes Open?

Fear can be a big motivator. It can also be what holds you back. I don't want to be held back anymore. I have an nominal job, and I'm seeing this pretty awesome girl. Which means for the first time in quite a while, I actually possess something worth having a fear of losing. I have this deep fear that I'm ignoring something staring me right in the face. Like when the detective solves the crime at the end of the movie and your shown flashback after flashback to clues that made it so damn obvious how the plot was being set up the whole time, and you wonder how you missed it.

I don't want to be afraid though. Fuck, after the last three and a half years of total misery maybe this is the big pay out. This is when the great scales of karma come back into balance. I feel like I pulled the lever and finally came up with triple cherries, jackpot. And I call her RIC.

Things are moving entirely too fast, but I'm so eager to have a life again I don't care. I'm seeing things that might be clues to something being wrong. Or maybe I'm imagining them. I don't know. I decide until I can put the pieces together and see a picture, I'm not going to invent a problem that exists only in my imagination. To clarify, I've never been one to be scared of having a relationship, I do fear never being able to get close to some to have a relationship. I also fear it ending, so I guess maybe I'm looking for the reasons why it'll end now, so I'm not surprised when it does end. So maybe I can head it off at the pass. So what's now a tiny splinter doesn't become so infected the only solution is amputation. I don't want to be afraid.

I push forward with reckless abandonment, which is a risky strategy for a new relationship, unless of course the other person is doing the same. She is too. It starts simply enough, spending way too much time together for two people who just met. Eventually I find myself making excuses to NOT be at her place, not because I don't want to be there, but because I feel like that's something I should be doing at some point. I have chores to do. I need this. I want that. I need to change clothes. I need to do laundry. Eventually it's only a matter of time before I just take the whole laundry basket over and then I don't need to go home to do laundry, or to get clothes. As it turns out, having lost so much over the past few years, I can pretty much live without my stuff..

RIC is amazing. The first week we're dating she has dinner on the table waiting for me when I get home from work more times than my ExWife did in the 12 years we were together. Not this is something I expect from any woman of mine, but ... it does impress me. One day at work I'm pondering going home for my iPhone dock/alarm clock and perhaps a pair of lounge pants for comfort. I don't even get around to telling her this, and by the time I get to her house after work she's purchased both for me. Any problem, no matter how small, she seems to be there with a solution. It's a new experience for me. I'm enjoying it, even if I'm not quite comfortable with it.

Meanwhile one day I see a Facebook post, announcing plans for a benefit for Dino's memorial fund. Anyone interested in contributing should contact her BioDad's sister, the child's aunt, The Librarian's ex-sister in law, whatever you want to call her. I sent her a message. "I'd like to help anyway I can. As I graphic designer, I'd be honored to design the flier to promote the event." She takes me up on the offer. She asks me if I can use a picture she saw on Facebook where Dino looked like an angel "Do you know which one I'm talking about?" " 

We'd been shopping in the mall, ducked inside the Disney Store for just a look. Of course the girl wanted everything. She was placated though by being allowed to try on a Cinderella dress and posing for a picture in front of a mural of the castle. "Yeah, I know which one. I took that picture."

We discuss the plans, it's clear that her hearts in the right place, but she really has no experience with planning an event like this. She wants fancy dinners and a fresh salad bar. I tell her to go with cheap spaghetti and lettuce with dressing. Every penny spent on food is a penny not going to the memorial fund. I throw her more advice along those lines. Don't feel like I did that much other than point her in a direction, she's grateful for the help. As I'm about to sign off, she says "If you don't mind me asking, how do you know the Librarian and her daughter?"  I'm not sure how "I dated the Librarian immediately before her fiancé" would go over. Might helping with this event be misconstrued as some bizarre selfish attempt to get her back? "I originally worked with her Lil' Sis, then later her. I'll just leave it at that." Woefully lacking, but truthful.

The benefit is scheduled for the Saturday before Easter. This is a challenge. I'm off work on Friday, my daughter is off school so I can pick my kids up a day early. However the benefit is going to be up by my kids, so driving 15 hours in three days is too much for me and 10 hours in three days is too much for the kids. We also have to find time to color Easter eggs in there. The only option seems to be to pick them up at the regular Saturday morning time and skip the eggs.

RIC however offers another solution. Pick up the kids Friday morning. Do fun stuff with kids all day Friday, get an extended stay hotel room so we can color Easter eggs, then Saturday do the benefit before coming home and soon Easter at my parents the next morning. Yeah, sounds like a great solution, but I don't have the money for that. "I do" she says. Again she's left me dumbfounded. "You do realize what you're offering right? Go to my ex-wife's and meet her, then spend the day with me and the kids, spend the night in a hotel with us on your dime, then go to a benefit for the daughter of my ex-girlfriend, where you'll meet her and likely her entire family, and maybe an emotional event and if you'd happen to have any feeling of jealousy you'd just have to eat them for the time being, plus a ton of driving, then meet my parents the next day?" 

"Yeah, I know." Damn, she's kinda awesome. 

 I could say that the fact she makes significantly more money than me was good thing, but it's not. Not entirely. She's used to going out regularly, as in almost every night, and not worrying about the cost. Just trying to keep up is taxing my resources, trying to be be a proper gentlemen and pay for our dates is getting to the point it warrants a conversation. "I don't have the money to go out all the time. I also don't want to feel like a mooch and make you pay for everything. At the same time I don't wanna become recluses and never leave the house." "I don't mind paying" "I know you don't, but I do." We make a plan to deal with this problem. Go out less, when we do do cheaper things. Don't need to buy drinks with dinner every time. Our first "fight" if you can even call it that. Problem identified, and solution propose and enacted. No hurt feelings. No drama. She decides to mark the occasion by taking me out to a seafood restaurant where dinner was $100 before tip. *shrug* 

I wish I could say there's progress on the war front, but the divorce isn't really isn't moving forward. We go, the lawyers negotiate, nothing is solved. After five hours of negotiation we reach a settlement. As with all good negotiations, neither of is is exactly happy. All that's left is for the lawyers to draw up the papers and my ex decides, "Uh, never mind." My lawyer is starting to think she has no intention of doing anything but making it go to trial.

I'm venting my frustrations, RIC sympathizes, yet doesn't blindly take my side. She pushes me to go for more with the kids. Wants me to consider, trying for full custody. I tell her I can't, not yet. I've struggled so long to find solid ground for my life, I can't yet build on this loose gravel I've managed to lay down. I need a real foundation first. Maybe someday. "I don't know how you can stand to be so far away from your kids. If it were me I get a job, any fast food job just to be close to them." "I tried that, it didn't work." "Well if you could find a job up there, I'd be willing to sell my house and start over up there with you. It's easy in my line of work to did a job." 

That almost sounded ... I mean it didn't sound like "I'd do that tomorrow for you." It sounded like "you need worry about having to choose between your kids and me if you want to move because I am not handcuffed to this area." Still her unbridled generosity, her adoring attention, this feels like a dream. I don't wanna wake up.

Suddenly she has that look, the look that she was trying to remember something for days, now three days later when she wasn't thinking about it, it hit her like a bolt of lightning. That's the look.

"I love you"

Did she just say that? Oh crap. What do I say? I'm not there yet. I'm on that road, but not there yet. Close, maybe. Right? There's still these hints of something wrong. But maybe those are my imagination. I definitely need an answer to that before I say it back. How long have I being thinking about this? A second? A minute? Oh geeze do something!

I kissed her ... Passionately. 

I didn't say anything.

This is my life now.

Use My Head Alongside My Heart

A few days have passed since her daughter's funeral, I decide to reach out the Librarian. I send her this simple message via Facebook "Sometime down the road, on your timetable, I'd like to catch up. I'm embarassed and ashamed on what it's taken me to get here." I'd no sooner sent the message then I got a text from her, thanking me for the picture frame and photo. Guess we're still a little on the same wave length, since her message wasn't a reply to mine.

I do want to be friends again. Yeah, crap happened and there were hurt feelings on my part, but suddenly none of that seems important. Big picture, it never was. I'd been out of her life for a year, and since burying the hatchet so to speak would be, weird, awkward and totally at the bottom of her list of priorities, the logical thing is to just revert to the last good point in the relationship. Out dating relationship never really went bad. It just kind of ended. Obviously we can't revert to that for a number of reasons, the most glaring of which is her fiancé. Roll back the clock even farther to when we were just friends ... And then I didn't yet know her daughter. 

Where this goes is on me, and her to agree to or not. In the laundry list of ways her life has changed, me being back is at the bottom to be dealt with, if it shows up at all on said list. So I put on my big boy pants and press forward. We talk, about nothing at first. But eventually I selfishly go back to selfishly bitching about my own life. I know that sounds strange, but it seems to be exactly what she needed. It's kinda sorta normal, and it gives her something else to think about.

Pressing forward with this new/old friendship would be slightly less awkwardish if I was seeing someone. Odd numbers and such. Besides, I have a steady job now, it's the next logical step in moving my life forward. I hit the dating sites, start talking to a handful of gals.

Online dating is a pain in the ass. As awkward and difficult a blind first date is, it's so much more awkward and futile online. As a male, you send a message, and hope to stick out among the hundreds of messages by mostly creeps. If you're lucky, you get a response. Then you have to be able to maintain a conversation long enough to build trust in order to get contact information to contact them outside of the dating app. And then you have to then build trust enough to get them actually meet you in public. All this without face to face interaction, or activities or anything. Sometimes its a matter of months to get there, and as you may imagine these women wonder off. Lack of chemistry, wondering into another relationship, deleting the app because another person creeped them out so much. Put out fifty feelers, maybe one interaction gets far enough to get to the actual meeting in person phase.

So imagine my surprise when I have not one, but four interactions with women that I feel like I could meet at anytime. I'm not one to date more than one person at a time, but I figure, I can go out on a date with each of them at least once and then figure out if any of them are worth a second date.

Girl #1, seems most like relationship material. But she cancels on me. The next night I go out with Girl #2, it goes okay. We have a good time. Dinner, a show, and then a dessert. But not even a good night hug. I have no idea if that means she doesn't like me, or she's shy. I'll ask her out again to figure it out. Girl #3 seems most like my type, but she lives an hour away. I put it on the back burner.

Next weekend I make maybe plans with Girl #3 for Friday. They wind up not happening. That's okay because Saturday I have plans with Girl #4, and Sunday a second attempt at a first date with Girl #1. Yeah, I might be pushing my luck.

Girl #4 is one who, on the surface doesn't to be the best fit for me, but not a bad one either. But that's the whole point of dating isn't it? To figure that out. So we go out. Dinner, drinks and a movie, nothing to suggest this was going to be a life altering event, but we definitely clicked more than I thought we were going too.

The next day Girl #1 cancels on me again. So I'm texting back and forth with Girl #3, she asks me what I'm doing, I tell her I'm thinking about ordering Chinese food. She tells me her order of Chinese, and that she always orders twice as much as she will eat so she can have leftovers, but if I wanted to come over, I was welcome to them. Who am I to turn down free food? I didn't give much thought to pacing obviously, but two dates in two days with the same woman ... not slow.

Her place is downright intimidating to me. The only women I've really dated since I split from the ex-wife have been divorced single moms or those who are still trying to find their way in life. In other words, semi-nomadic apartment dwellers, with strained financial resources. This one made out well in the divorce from her doctor ex-husband. Her so called humble abode is a four bedroom fully remodeled house, and just to additionally blow my poverty trained mind, new matching furniture through out. While most of this was purchased with the divorce settlement, she's not exactly hurting for cash herself. She's a home health care nurse and makes a pretty penny. I am officially dating way out of my league, economically anyway.

We eat the Chinese on her couch and watch a Duck Dynasty marathon and talk. She tells me she's surprised I came over. I ask why, and she tells me she figured she was just another Random Internet Chick to me. "Not really my style" I tell her, unaware myself at that moment I had been trying to make it my style if only for two weeks. I failed at that attempt though, as I was done with trying to date Girls #1-3 ... for now anyway.

"I am going to have to start calling you that now, Random Internet Chick " I tell her "... Maybe just RIC for short." I can't call her by her real name anyway. It's way too similar to that of my ex-wife's. In fact, they both have the same nickname. Even worse at my wedding reception, while giving his toast, my best man called my ex by the wrong name. Want to guess what name he said by accident? I try not to over think that coincidence here in the present.

During a Duck Dynasty commercial break, RIC tells me she's getting a dog from the pound later in the week. Not just any dog, a stray and a pit bull at that. Given the reputation of the breed, it sounds a bit risky, but my Rocker Chick friend had a pit bull she fostered for a few weeks. Having no real exposure to pit bulls before that, I wasn't expecting it to be the sweetest dog in the world, but it was. While I was walking it one day, I called the pup a good dog, and it immediately dropped to the ground and rolled over for a belly rub. So perhaps I'll give this pit bull a chance. Since I work second shift I offer to go with her to pickup the dog in the morning, I'd be glad to go, so that she could worry about the dog and I would worry about the driving. I try to play it off as a practical offer as to not to appear overly interested in seeing her again. Then I realize the appointment to pick up the dog is Thursday. Thursday the Fourteenth ... of February. Valentine's Day.

I feel like I should get something for this girl I'm apparently dating now, especially if I'm seeing her on Valentine's day. What's the least I can buy to communicate I'm interested, but not too interested? I mean I've only seen the girl twice, don't want to over do it. I settle on flowers and a few dog toys. Dog toys are practical and thoughtful, and the flowers show a hint of a romantic side. 

We pick up the dog. It's hyper and excited but that's to be expected with a new home. Otherwise, the dog is a big baby. I guess RIC isn't nuts for getting it after all.  I head to work, but not before she invites me to a friend's birthday party Saturday night. I decline, it's my weekend with the kids.

On the other hand, there is a benefit to having to stay with my parents when I have my kids. That being once the kids are asleep, my parents have no objection to watching them and I can sneak out for the night. So that's exactly what I do. We have some drinks and birthday cake, I meet her best friend and others. I didn't even mention to her I might be coming until the kids were asleep, so she was properly impressed with my efforts.

The next day I decide to take the kids to a movie. I check the listings, and the only dollar theater showing a kid friendly movie at a time we can reasonably make is located right in RIC's back yard. It's dumb, but I really want to see her again. I text her, tell her I'm taking the kids to a movie and then add "I know it's kinda rushing things, but if this is going somewhere, and I hope it is, if on the off chance you and my kids didn't get along, it'd be better to know sooner rather than later. So if you'd happen to show up at the movie, I'd have no objection to that."

So RIC joins me and my kids for Wreck It Ralph. The boy is restless, and by the end of the movie he's in my lap. The lights come up and I have my arm around RIC, the boy in my lap, and my daughter laying her head on me. Life feels really good at this moment. It's been a long time since I could say that. I'm almost afraid to get used to it. We go McDonald's for a happy meal fix before I take the kids back to their mother's. RIC asks me to come over on my way home, I agree. 

Several hours later I arrive at her place. Another uneventful evening at her place, but it's exactly what I want. Life has been too damn interesting for too long. A night in front of the TV, with a beautiful woman, just what I need. 

"You know I'm on this training shift for the next few weeks," I tell her, "so I'm almost on normal people hours instead of second shift. So it'd seem to me like I would be wasting an opportunity if I didn't try to take advantage of it and spend time, I normally wouldn't have, with you." As luck would have it, RIC is between work assignments and she's off work until further notice. Guess we'll be spending a lot of time together.

All attempts at taking things slow have gone out the window. I'm trying to decide why this might be a bad thing, but right now, I don't have a reason. Maybe there is one. But this is what I want ... This feels good. And damn it I deserve to feel good. I'm trying not to expect this to go wrong. Everything has gone wrong for me the past few years. Things are allowed to be good for a change. "Don't hold back just because you're expecting it to go wrong" I tell myself, "I'm allowed to be happy!"

After that night, I wouldn't sleep in my own bed for another month.

This is my life now.

We Count Only Blue Cars

The new job offers stability, but not much else. The pay is okay, better than I've had in years, but not great. I hate the work. It's boring and not on my desired career path. It's also second shift, which cuts my weekends with the kids to (excluding drive time) 11am on Saturday to 4pm on Sunday. I hate that. But unlike the other second shift jobs I get a break around dinner time, and twice a week I call the kids on my break. The rest of the week I poke around Facebook on my phone during breaks.

The first Thursday of the year I'm doing my break time Facebook check. Scrolling through the mindless banality of it all. I see a post from my ex-girlfriend, the Librarian's little sister.

"Please send prayers, good thoughts, etc. to my sister and her daughter who is in ICU ... Doctors say her daughter won't make it. Could be a few hours or a few days."

I nearly drop my phone. I tell myself it's not real. Lil' Sis is on the other side of the country. It's like the game telephone, she misheard it from someone who misheard it. This doesn't happen to seven year old girls. And it sure as hell doesn't happen to Dino. I start flipping through the address book of my phone to call the Librarian. "That's a bad idea" I tell myself. I have barely spoken to her in over a year and she's engaged to someone else. Not to mention she likely won't answer. Lil's Sis, not by coincidence, is alphabetically next to her. I call her instead. We've been friends for more than a decade, so that's a much better route.

The phone rings twice. She picks up. I can hear joy in her voice as she greats me by name, caller ID gave me away. I choke on my words "What ... what happened?" I hear the joy slip out of her voice as she says "I wondered if anyone let you know." She tells me the girl was sick the night before, and that in the morning she wouldn't wake up. She told me theories and possible explanations but details were sketchy and my mind was blurry. My break time was almost over and Lil' Sis and her mother were packing to catch the first flight in the morning to our side of the country. Before I hung up I asked "Should I call her? I want to do something, but I don't wanna ..." I sobbed. She told me to text the Librarian, let her know I was thinking about them, she most likely won't respond, but it'll mean something.

"I saw your sister's Facebook post, I didn't know if calling would be appropriate or not, but I wanted to let you know I was thinking about your girl (and you). Let me know if I can do anything, even if just listen."

I hit send, then went back to Facebook and sent the Librarian a friend request, thinking it'll be easier for her to update everyone at once than everyone (me) individually. Break time is over. I muddled through the rest of my shift blurry in a daze. I went home that night knowing nothing new about the situation. She accepts my friend request late evening, but Facebook statuses say nothing I don't already know. At midnight I decide to turn in. No news is good news I tell myself.

No sooner than I close my eyes than I get a mass text from a number I don't recognize.

"12:08 -  Hi, it's the Librarian, My daughter is in critical condition in the ICU. Not gonna pull through. Juvenile Diabetes. Heartbroken. Thanks for messages."

I cried myself to sleep hoping I'd wake up from this bad dream. The next morning I woke up and it's still real. I checked her Facebook for any update, perhaps even a change in outlook. None. I checked Lil's Sis's. Nothing. I checked Sister #3. I checked her mother's, her step-sister's, her niece's, her niece's husband's anyone I could think of  ... nothing. I go to work. I check on break, I check when I go to the bathroom. I check when I'm supposed to be working. Nothing. I go home and make one last check before bed ...

" ... We lost my beautiful dancing and singing niece at 10:35 EST from complications from undiagnosed diabetes. Her mother had just finished reading her The Chronicles of Narnia. Thank you all so much for your prayers and wishes of comfort."

Of course that's how the Librarian would spend her last hours with her daughter ... reading to her.

The world barely and rarely made sense to me and now this. "Sudden and overwhelming complications from previously undiagnosed juvenile diabetes." That's the phase I'd hear. A long mouthful sounding really technical that really just meant a little seven year old girl went to bed with little more than a flu, and then didn't wake up. Someone explain to me how this happens? How is this right?  I'm devastated. I'm sad. I'm angry. I'm confused. What's the social protocol for attending the funeral of the child of a ex-girlfriend you've barely been on speaking terms with and is engaged to someone else? My head swims and I cry myself to sleep again. I have to pick up the kids the next morning after all.

I barely let my kids out of my sight. My kids were close to Dino. I have to tell them something, not sure what though. I decide to do it one on one. I start with the boy. He's three, he might not remember her, and he doesn't. I'm both relived and disappointed. Then my girl, they're only thirteen months apart and they were as thick as thieves. "Do you remember Dino?" She smiles and says she does. I ask her what she remembers about her ... I want to be sure she actually remembers, and isn't just saying that because she thinks it's what I want to hear. If I have to explain to my daughter that her friend, her partner in crime is gone; what death is, I want to do it for the right reason. "Uhm ... we went to Chuck E. Cheese with her, and we played dress up  ... and uhm ... I went to Sunday School with her." I'd forgotten all about that. One of the last times the five of us were together Dino's Grandfather and Step-Grandmother took the girls to Sunday School. That was her memory and her memory alone. Not something I was a part of. At that age I could barely remember my best friend's name to tell my parents by the time I got home from school. It meant a lot to know she was a real and significant part of my daughters life.

I tell her the truth, but in vague abstract terms a six year old might be able to grasp. Dino got sick. She didn't get better and we're not going to be able to see her anymore. You don't have to worry cause it's not a kind of sick you can catch. It's okay to be sad, I'm sad too. She cries, and I hold her telling her everything will be alright, but not really knowing how. I don't know if she's crying because she understands or because she sees her daddy crying. Maybe both. I hold her for a long time, and just cry.

My next challenge, the services. I don't know what the protocol is in this sort of situation. If you've never lost someone close to you, first consider yourself lucky. Second know that it's perfectly normal to have weird and random and seemingly unrelated and somewhat inappropriate thoughts. I wonder what thoughts she might have if I'm there. Then I wonder what feelings I might evoke in her fiance. I know it's stupid. I should hate the guy but I don't. I put myself in his shoes and after that kinda loss I'd be worried about losing even more, and some random ex showing up in time like this might evoke some sense of jealousy. Like I'm trying to take advantage of the situation and steal her away. I'm not going to do that of course. It's a hard enough time as it is, I don't want to make it any harder on ... anyone. Maybe I'm worrying about it because I don't want to go. If I go it makes it real. Maybe, I'm worrying about it because these are my own weird and inappropriate thoughts. Maybe I'm worrying about nothing because obviously she didn't feel the way I felt ... feel about her. On the other hand he may not even know who I am.

I don't know what to do. This all seems surreal. I check Facebook repeatedly, afraid that somehow when the arrangements are made I'll be forgotten. I don't want to ask anyone either, I don't want to intrude or be pushy. It takes several days but finally, they're posted to Facebook. I go though the photos on my computer looking for pictures of Dino. I find them and copy them one by one to a safe place. There's pictures of her at the amusement park and at Chuck E. Cheese with my daughter.  There's a picture sent to me on her first day of school. There's some pictures in my car, some at the beach with my kids and her mother. There one of me and her at a baseball game. A large majority of the pictures of her though are selfies she took when I let her play with my phone. That used to drive me nuts. Now I treasure every one. All these memories I tried to forget about, to try and forget about the heartbreak. Now my hearts broken in a whole new worse way. I'm crawling around in the memories of dead relationship trying to bring this little girl back to life if only in my mind.

Finally I get to the photos from the cross country trip to her aunt's wedding. One picture jumps out at me, I don't remember it, but I think it was taken with my camera after I left. Dino's laying on the couch, the same couch I slept on there, in a purple shirt with butterflies and pink shorts, with her head on a brown pillow. She's got a big smile on her face and in hands she's holding a red crayon and piece of paper. On the paper she'd written with that red crayon "I Love You." I didn't debate if I was going after that. She just told me too.

I call off work to make the trip across the state. I print out the picture so that halfway there I can stop at a gift shop I'd carefully researched on the internet the night before. I buy a picture frame and have the girl's name engraved on it. As a friend put it to me, when I told her what I was doing "If I lost my daughter, I would give anything just to have her tell me 'I love you' one more time. You're giving that too her."

I asked myself during my last stretch of unemployment what was the point of our failed relationship. I had an answer that worked, abet briefly. I was fine with it not working out when I chased her across the state and wound up with an awesome life re-booting job. That seemed like a pretty darn good answer. Then I got laid off after only two months and the question came roaring back and twice as loud. Why? Then I couldn't find other employment and wound up leaving town. Why?!? I wanted to find some meaning. Why!?! Now I ask myself what if that whole relationship happened so I could fly cross country for a weekend, leaving my camera behind, so that more than a year later I'd find that one photo now? Was that why all that happened? If so ... now I'm okay with that.

Due to work, the distance and schedule for the viewing and funeral, I make the decision to only attend the first evening's viewing. I decide to tackle the possible awkwardness by just hanging out in the back. I can talk with Lil' Sis, Sister #3 and who ever else I may know. If the Librarian wants to talk to me she can. If she chooses not too, I'll be disappointed, but not hurt. I arrive early. I sit in my car waiting, mentally preparing myself. Still trying to wish this all into not being real.

I pull myself together. I wait until about ten minutes after it's supposed to start and head inside, the picture frame boxed and tucked under my arm. I go inside wanting to be anywhere else and no where else at that moment. As I'm in the middle of signing the guest book, I feel someone wrap their arms around my neck from the side. The hug is so tight I can't even turn my head to look and see who it is, but I know anyway. The blind sided half tackle, half hug was her niece's trademark. "You know Sis, you're making it very hard to write" I say with a restrained chuckle and tears in my eyes. I scribble the last three letters of my name, and then hug her back, long and hard.

I go into the viewing room, my eyes scan the room. I gravitate to the back, with the family members I'm most comfortable with, and even more importantly, it's farthest away from the casket. I'm not ready for that. Not even sure I can do that. I'm early enough that I recognize almost all the faces. Then I see him. I never met the guy, only saw a picture of him once, but I'm totally caught off guard, my reaction is strong and visceral.

The first time Dino and her mother spent the night at my house. My son was asleep in his bedroom. The Librarian was in the bedroom pecking out her homework on her laptop. Dino and my girl were having a slumber party in the living room. I tucked them in their sleeping bags, and my daughter wanted me to sing to her as I did most nights. I was a little hesitant to do so, because I wasn't used to an audience. I went ahead and sang to her Billy Joel's "Lullaby (Good Night My Angel)" anyway. Then I kissed her forehead and told the girls good night. I slipped into the other room for a few minutes to the computer to check Facebook and my email. Before heading to bed I stopped in the living room to make sure the girls were actually sleeping. Mine was. Dino wasn't, in fact she wasn't even there. I checked the bathroom and the kitchen. Then went to the bedroom and found her curled up, head in her mothers lap. I asked if every thing was okay. Her mother responded "she's just a little upset, the song you sang reminded her of her father and now she misses him." She'd already been comforted, but I rubbed the girls back to comfort her more. "Time for bed now" her mother told her. I took her to the living room and tucked her in again, a little more carefully, and a little warmer.

When I returned to the bedroom I asked "When's the last time she saw him?" She answered "seven, maybe eight months." I knew they'd split up when she was just a baby, so I followed up "Is that typical for him?" She let out a resigned sigh, "yeah." Until that moment I hadn't given much thought to Dino. She was, I hate to admit, at that early point in our relationship, an obstacle I had yet to figure out how to deal with. Now suddenly she was a little girl, who wanted her daddy, a dad she barely knew. I decided then and there, how ever long it lasted, I was going to try to fill that hole in her life. I'm not going to say I was trying to be her father, or even a father figure, because that'd a bit of an oversell on my part. But I definitely was trying to be a positive male role model in her life. From that point on I treated her like I treated my own kids. Both the fun stuff and the not so fun stuff. Never told her mother what I was doing either. Didn't want her to think I was doing it to impress her. I was doing it because I wanted to, and because that little girl deserved it.

I didn't understand how a father could not want to be a part of his child's life. It didn't even occur to me that he'd be there at her funeral. Yet there he was, a year an a half later at her funeral, crying. I wanted to grab him by the collar and drag him out side because he didn't belong there. He didn't get to step up now that it's too late when he failed to do that her whole life. No, you asshole. We lost her. We get to grieve. You don't. You ... you gave her up years ago. FUCK YOU! Fuck you. I hope it hurts asshole. I hope the pain is unbearable, because you fucked up. You chose to not be a part of her life. That little girl wanted you in her life, she deserved you, but you sure as hell didn't deserve her. Now you're just sitting up there, by her fucking coffin alone. You missed out on this amazing little girl. That's on you and no one else.

From everything I was told I was a better father to that child in the few months I got to spend with her than that dumb fuck was in her whole life. Sure I failed as much as I succeeded, if not more, but at least I fucking tried. I decide to take the high ground and ignore him. It's not like saying anything to him will bring her back, and besides ... Dino would have wanted him there.

This whole thing is surreal. I'm attending the funeral of a seven year old girl. I mill around awkwardly like everyone does at the funeral. Funerals are so strange, the ones who are grieving the most wind up being the hosts, greeting and talking to everyone, strangers and friends alike. The Librarian slowly makes her way across the room, interrupted every few feet. She does eventually make it out to my patch of carpet.

She introduces me to her fiance. Whatever awkwardness I was worried about was obviously in my head, or simply trumped by the gravity of the situation. Worrying about it because it was something to worry about rather than think about reality, I suppose.  I try to have a conversation with her but ... words fail me. I gesture a few times trying to find something to say with more substance than "I'm sorry" but on the third attempt, that's what comes out. "I got you this" stumbles out of my mouth right behind it. I hand her the picture of her daughter insides the gift box. "Will it make me cry?" I bite my lip and nod, "Probably". "I'm going to wait to open it then." I nod this time in understanding. She then asks me "Have you been up there to see her yet?" I answer "not yet." I don't know why I said that though. I don't want to go up there. I don't want to see her up there like that. And the word "yet" some how made the implied promise I would. "She looks so beautiful" she tells me. "She always did," ugh, did I just say that? Not that it's untrue, but it sounds like the most generic, trite, scripted, response. About this time she's pulled away into another conversation from another mourner wanting to get their appropriate face time.

I take a seat in the rows of chairs to watch the slide show of photos of the child's life. Her family is seated in a small cluster near the rear, I'm just on the outside of them, literally and I guess metaphorically too. We sit and watch the slide show loop, then loop again. I see a photo of me and the girl and it makes me smile. "I see so much .. of the clothes my daughter now wears" I say with a choked laugh to no one in particular, realizing exactly how many hand me downs I have.

Around the third loop I suck it up and head up to the casket. I'm the only one up there at the moment. Dino lies in there, pink sequined beret sits atop her head, her girl scout sash across her chest. I study the sash, not the badges, but the very edge of the green fabric, hoping to catch the slightest hint of movement from her chest rising and falling, as if this whole thing was someone's idea of a sick joke, or maybe a big fucking mistake. It's not though. This is real. There really is a seven year old girl ... an seven year old girl I used to tuck into bed at night, that I used to read stories to who used to tackle me with her hugs at the front door to her mother's apartment. "Damnit Dino, you practically knocked me over every time I saw you, drove me nuts ... what I wouldn't give for that right now ..." I don't know why people say at funerals that the deceased looks like they're sleeping. She doesn't look like she's sleeping. If she was sleeping her chest would be moving. Her nostrils would be flaring just slightly. I know. I watched her sleep more than once. This looks nothing like it.

I apologize to her. When I lived over there I drove by that exit on the highway every other weekend for seven months on my way to get my kids. Every time I was bringing the kids to my place I thought about seeing if I could borrow her for the weekend. I never did. I always told myself next time. There is no more next time now. I'm sorry, I should have stopped. I wanted to. I didn't though. Why didn't I? The last time I saw her she wouldn't say good bye to me. I thought then, as I do now, she knew she wouldn't see me again. Not like this though. Never did it occur to me it'd be like this. I should've ... I wish ... If I'd known that ... DAMNIT!

I pull myself and retreat slightly. I find myself standing in a position where it'd be awkward not to be having conversation with the girl's grandfather. I spent plenty of time with him and I can tell he looks absolutely brutally ragged. They say no parent should out live their child and he's just outlived his granddaughter. Nothing, I say sounds like anything but formulaic platitudes. I'm embarrassed that I can't find anything to say that's not .. different. Eventually he too is pulled into another conversation and I go back to the relative comfort in the back of the room.

I put my arm around Lil' Sis's shoulders and she put her head on mine in return. I rest mine head against hers. We stand there, maybe for a moment, maybe for an hour. I don't know. Then she blurts out "I'm so glad you got to be a part of her life." I don't think anyone's ever said anything so meaningful to me in my entire life. "Me too." I say though the sobs. "She was like my third kid." My unpoetic words fail to express the magnitude of that statement, but still the god honest truth.

This isn't my first funeral, but it's by far the most exhausting. I sit in the row of chairs against the back wall for most of the rest of the night. Sometimes alone, sometimes with one of the sisters. I think a lot. Mostly I watch the Librarian. She's absolutely stoic. I don't know how she's even breathing, let alone playing hostess to the masses wondering in.

I see parents, mostly mothers, wonder in with their children. The kids mostly look lost and confused. Nice shirt, nice pants or dress and gym shoes. Huddling close to the knees of their adults. They're wide eyed and confused about what's going on, not knowing why they're there but with just a hint of understanding that it's terrible. The parents introduce themselves to the Librarian, then they introduce their child. "My son was in your daughter's class last year" or "My daughter had math with her." Those conversations never last very long. Eventually the parent thinks for moment too long, grabs their first graders' hand and bolts for door, one hand covering their face, wiping away tears, covering their face to hide that they let themselves think, for just a moment, what it'd be like to be in her shoes. This happens more than once.

Eventually, there's a lull, and the masses aren't so massive for the moment. The Librarian takes a seat down next to me. "Think anyone would mind if I just laid down on the floor behind that couch and took a nap?" "I think you can pretty much do whatever you want and no one's going to judge you right now." I put my hand on her just below her shoulder and rub her back. It's intended to be comforting, but it feels hollow and empty. Here's someone I care deeply about going through the worst kind of pain you can imagine and it's the only thing I can think to do to offer comfort. I'm not even sure if she realizes I'm doing it. I ask her how she's holding up, that sounds like a slightly less stupid question that "How are you doing?"

 "I've been so busy talking to people tonight, if I had a moment to stop and think I might lose it." "Understood." That's all I can think to say. I sit there for a moment trying to come up with something more intelligent to say, and the panic that set in, realizing we were now sitting there in silence, giving her that moment to think about it, didn't help. Before I can say anything, she interrupts the silence and excuses her self to the ladies room. She never did like me to see her cry. She'd reemerge some twenty minutes later.

Lil' Sis comes and sits with me in the now vacant seat. We make small talk until a random mourner come up and starts talking to Lil' Sis. Starts asking all sorts of random an inappropriate questions like "Which one's the father and why aren't they together anymore?" and "Did he fool around on her?" To her credit, they were answered vaguely, and briskly. I'm not sure if she just didn't know the answers to the questions. I did. I wouldn't have answered them with as much class, then again I'm not sure I wouldn't have just told them off for asking such nonsense at a funeral.

The child's grandmother, who flew in from cross country with Lil' sis, comes looking for the Librarian. I tell her she's in the ladies room. She nods, understanding it wasn't a potty break, as much as it was a people break. She looks at me "I remember you from the wedding." I smile, actually surprised she remembers me since we only met in passing. "You had the shoes." Ugh, of all the things to remember, it's the fact I forgot to pack dress shoes to wear with my suit.

A half hour later, the night is almost over and I realize that the people that are still here are the ones that were here when I got here. I guess that means it's time for me to leave and let the family have their much needed alone time. I go up to say my final goodbyes to Dino. She does look beautiful. I say my good byes to the family, shake the fiance's hand and then say goodbye to the Librarian and hug her one last time. She says to me "No crying while you drive okay?" I nod, fight back the tears and smile because that's the exact same thing she said to me the last two times I saw her. Outside I sit in my car for a good ten minutes to keep my promise.

Once upon a time there were hard feelings about the break up. There aren't any anymore. Most of those feelings were due to the fact all she ever told me about her fiance was that he had money. That was something I didn't have. I didn't understand what she was trying to tell me when she told me that way back when, but I do now. That part wasn't trumping feelings. It was saying that I didn't need to worry about her. He had money and that meant she didn't have to work anymore. She could focus on going back to school, and more importantly spend more time with her daughter, for what would wind up being the last year of her life. I wouldn't take that away from either of them for anything. Besides, all that little girl wanted was a daddy ... and I am so very ... grateful she had that when she left us.

This is my life now.