I want to drown. Drown in the cover of darkness, broken only by neon lights and the slurred, hushed conversation. I sit alone at the far end of this dank, dark bar, a setting that only serves to feed my somber mood. The whiskey is cloyingly sweet and sharp. I’ve had too much, and nowhere near enough.

They leave me be, the patrons of this old haunt. They know me well. I’ve given them a piece of my soul. I’ve paid my dues, as I do each night. I play for a bit, let them feel, and allow myself to feel. Soon, it is too much and I take my leave of the stage. No one seems to mind. I don’t know why, but I need the audience, the connection, if only for the briefest of time.

Now though, it is time to drown my sorrows, to fight down the waves of memories that threaten to tug me down. They start in small swells, lapping at my toes, wetting the cuffs of my pants. There is no undertow, not at this point. There is no real strength to the pull.

Drink after drink, I sink. I’m at the bottom now, the light flicking through the depths. Memories rise, bright jewel-like bubbles. I remember.

I remember her and all we had. We grew up together. At first, we were nothing more than family friends, smiles and waves and awkward conversations. Then she noticed me, and I her. She pushed me to be more, and I dared her to dream. My first love and I thought for so long, my only love. She was my everything. And then she gave me more.

He was born early, every finger and toe so tiny, so perfect. Our union sealed with his first breath. All that we were forever joined in a little soul that was ours to care for.

Oh, how I adored him, my baby, my boy. I’d work all night and struggle to stay awake through the day just so I wouldn’t miss a moment. I was whole, my life complete in the joy of watching him grow in leaps and bounds. Every day was a milestone, even through the sleep fatigued haze, I wouldn’t have given up a single moment. Our little family was all that mattered, Roxie, Reid, and me. Two had been love, but three was a dream.

Dreams, such insubstantial things. We were children ourselves. Young and naive. We were poor in those early days, with barely enough to get through. Fatigue ate away the patience. Stress made tempers flare. Through these rocky waters we clung to our little lifeboat, our child, our hope, little Reid.

We held on, and the storm broke. We thought we were safe, we’d made it through the hard times, all we had achieved. Roxie graduated, with her degree, a career followed. With two incomes, we would succeed. I still worked nights and spent the days with Reid, toddling now and growing fast.

Gone were the days that he would lay and giggle and coo at his mobile. No longer would he be contented with a soft toy, rattle, or a short drive. Now we struggled to keep things out of reach, out of his hands and mouth. Every table, couch, and chair another tool to help him climb. Every item left unattended, dropped, or misplaced found its way to sticky, drool covered hands. Keeping up with an active boy through my sleepless days and sleepless nights was swiftly becoming more than I could handle.

We’d put away enough for a down-payment. The house was more than we needed, but Roxie wanted room to grow. I could never tell her no. Building a fence for the pool was first on my list, but I never could find the time. Between boxes and child gates, long hours, and dwindling vacation days, I was stretched thin. Daycares never passed muster with Roxie, and sitters were few and far between.

Toddling turned to walking and running, and nap-times became a happy memory. I couldn’t keep up, things had to change. Potty training, the last piece of the puzzle, Roxie swore. The preschool would take him once we reached that lofty goal. It’s easier said than done. We were so close, Reid and I on this journey to manhood. Pee in the potty, point, and aim, shake it off and put it away. Every M&M earned a tug on my heartstrings. The last happy memory, the last joy I could cling to. My little man.

The waters swirl and turn dark, the current cold and cruel. I am no longer safely floating through memories, I’ve been buoyed to the surface where the waves crash upon me, relentless and savage. I flail and struggle to breathe. Lightning flashes across the sky and see. I see what I do not wish to see.

His lips blue, his skin so pale. Long lashes against those sweet plump cheeks that will never again brighten into that smile that lit my heart. With him went my soul.

After a snack, I’d put on a show, his favorite, to catch my precious hour of sleep before Roxie came home and took the next shift.

Ried had just learned to open the door, the knob a challenge he worked to overcome. He liked his challenges, my little boy. I’d sworn once he was in school, I’d put up the fence. One thing at a time, Roxie and I had agreed.

The materials still sit, piled on their pallets, weathered by rain and long abandoned. The yard neglected, the weeds grown up high, seen only in glimpses through the glass of that traitorous backdoor.

The pain comes flaring bright again, and I am crushed upon the rocks of the shore, blinking into the darkening sky. I had thought no pain was greater, I thought it had all been taken.

Until she took even more.

The silence between us had been long. The tears had evaporated into a ghostlike existence as we drifted through our days, barely crossing paths on our routines. Her world was day, and mine was the night. She piled on the work, her weekends filled as well as her evenings. Through my lonely days and menial nights, I saw her less and less.

Without the sun of Ried’s smiling face, I was lost. No little feet to kick me when he crawled into bed beside me. No babbling stories or questions of “what’s that?” No routine of meals and potty and baths and failed attempts at naps.

I held it together somehow, paying the bill and working each night. Then over dinner she told me, the words that would crush me.

“I have to go,” she said softly, moving her food around on the plate, all attempts at eating long abandoned. “I can’t stay in this house. I have to get out.”

I nodded, I knew what she meant. We’d cried in his room for days, the door hadn’t been opened in months. Yet the reminders were everywhere. The corner where he’d cut his chin, the grape juice stain in the carpet, the child locks and outlet covers, the toys I’d unearth from time to time.

“We’ll go then,” I replied, it would be so simple. Pick up and leave, start over somehow.

“No,” Roxie cut in, interrupting my thoughts. “I mean, I have to go. Alone.”

“Oh.”

“All I see him when I look at you,” her voice echoed like thunder in my misery. Words came after; explanations, and platitudes. Sweet nothings and promises of maybe someday. We both knew the truth. It was the end.

Our love, though it had blossomed so long before Ried, though we’d gone through so much, was crushed under the weight of our sorrow. The young lovers we’d been had grown up. We can never go back.

And now I drown. Drown in the memories of what had been. Of my first love, my second love, and of how I lost it all. The glimpses I catch, those memories bring me such a bittersweet joy. Each scene that replays, each glimpse back, my heart’s fondest wish replayed forever. I remember them best in this alcohol-soaked haze, blurring sharp-edged reminders of reality.