Even to this day, it amazes and terrifies me how huge an impact one can have on your life even without you ever laying eyes on them. The moment I knew I was going to be a father I felt my body, almost, radiate an absolute state of euphoria I had no clue one could experience. Perhaps that feeling is the high addicts chase. The problem for me is that the come down was a violently vicious emotional and mental roller-coaster of a ride. And that high is not one that could be replicated because, I fear, the next time I hear the words “I’m pregnant” I will instantly be transported back to that moment. The brain has this funny way of being able to do that; you could be stood in a completely different place and time from that which the original event occurred but, given a catalyst, you will be flung back there with unimaginable velocity and it is as if you never left. This became true for me as we sat face to face in a restaurant.

Time had danced on, as it does, between that moment and this one. Without a shadow of a doubt, she and I were not the same people we once were and certainly we were not the same people whose love came together to create that life; a life erased before even being permitted a first breath. As we sit here, I can’t deny that it all feels deeply surreal. It is our anniversary and this restaurant holds a special place in our hearts but, the truth of the matter is, our hearts don’t function as they used to. How could they? Although I know I still love her and I do not blame her for the difficult decision she made, I also know that I no longer love her in the way that I did. Because I blame myself. In the months between then and now, I honestly do believe that, not a single second became a minute in which I did not think about her. About Lilli. About my baby. I think about the fact that I failed her. I, the one who knew before she existed that I wanted to be a father some day, failed. I, the one who should have been by her side every step of the way to love, care for, educate, nurture and protect her, failed. In an instant, this revelation transported me back to a moment in my own childhood where I found myself riddled with confusion and hatred for my own father. The father who left me. The father I didn’t and still don’t know. I remember staring at myself in the mirror; barely able to see as my own little brown, starfish haloed, eyes as they swam in a salty sea of hurt. As I blinked myself into a brief moment of, semi, visual clarity I tried to figure out what was wrong with me; why he didn’t want me. Why I wasn’t enough of a reason to stay. These questions now fill me with a different kind of hollow as I can’t help but imagine my little Lilli asking the same questions. Why didn’t you want me daddy? Why didn’t you protect me? Why did you let me go daddy? Didn’t you love me? What was wrong with me? They go on and on. Question after question spirals then crashes against and echoes through the caverns of my mind with a deafening crescendo from which I wish I could escape. But I can’t. You can’t run from that which exists within you. You can’t run from the truth and that truth is the reason I don’t think I have stayed true to my word. As she sits here before me and we force fragments of conversation between the mouthfuls of food and the lifetimes that live in the silences, I know that she is not the same. Not just because of the devastating decision she had to make but because I told her that I would support her in that decision and, although I have tried, the reality is I have failed in this too. I have barely been able to support myself, let alone another. I have certainly been distant and that is not helpful to her in the slightest. I can see the weight she carries on her shoulders when I look into her eyes. And even that, I don’t do as often as I should. I think, perhaps, had I looked into her eyes more often I would have noticed that there was something else wrong.

Something she wasn’t telling me.

As we sit here, in this surreal moment, I fill one of those lifetimes with a truth I should express more often. I look into her eyes and tell her that I love her. It is at this moment I see a flicker of something I cannot identify. In this moment, she becomes a bit short and snappy in her responses and that makes the rest of the meal even less pleasant than it already was. I ask her what is wrong and she claims to be tired so I suggest we go. More silences. More lifetimes slip between us. That is, right up until the moment she tells me she hates me. I am almost surprised by this but then, I remember that I hate me too. And, in a single moment, that moment becomes the prologue to my destruction.
She tells me it’s my fault. In fact, she begins to scream it and that scream is suddenly chased by her brandishing the very words my own heart had been using to carve self-loathing lacerations across every inch of my brain as she, vehemently, informs me that I should not have let her go through with it. And my heart knows she is right even though my mind tries to tell me I did the right thing. It has been saying that for the past several months and it never wins the argument so I don’t know why it still tries. I respond with rage because, of course, the truth hurts. I, loudly, remind her that this was not what I wanted and my voice grows, unlike our child, as I tell her that I don’t blame her so it isn’t fair for her to blame me. She screams again, this time the words punctuate her harrowing cries, perhaps to the Gods, that she wants her baby back. Heavy rain falls from my eyes as I repeat, over and over, that it wasn’t my fault and that I didn’t want her to go through with it. The pain is revitalised and becomes anger again and now I’m shouting, again. I don’t even remember the exact combination of words that flew from my face but I think it all became too much for her and my barrage was shattered by one single sentence.

“She made me do it.”

Silence falls from the sky, shrouding us in its treachery as everything becomes amplified. I could almost hear my heart beat as it threatened to erupt through my chest. I can see by the look of surprise on her face that she didn’t mean to expel that, but now it is out there. I ask her to whom it was she referred. She burns a hole in the concrete beneath us with averted eyes. I eliminate some of the distance between us, I think in an unintentionally threatening way. She strides backward. I ask her, who made her do what. I demand that she tell me. I can feel myself shouting again. And then the words that trickle from her mouth, like poison from a vial, seep into my veins and begin to charge toward my heart with vigour. If someone were to ever ask me to describe the feeling of betrayal, I know I could never do it justice and I know I would hope, for his or her sake, that they never feel it.
She tells me that the decision I supported, the decision I believed to be hers, was not hers at all. It was mother’s. Not because she didn’t like me. Not because she felt we were not ready. Not because she cared about her daughter and thought maybe it wasn’t the right time for her to have a baby. It was because this woman was afraid that her daughter’s father – a man who despises people of my particular hue – would leave her if he found out that his child now carried a child that was half n****r.

I couldn’t believe it.

For the 3 years we have been together, this man was not even in the picture because he had cheated on her mother and now, we stand in this dark street and she is telling me that our baby is not here because her mother was afraid of losing that man again. In an instance I am shunted from one moment to another as an unimaginable darkness descends upon and engulfs me. I am suddenly stood in a dimly lit hospital room holding her hand as a nurse smears ultrasound gel across her stomach. I’m not even sure how we got to this point after how certain she was that she couldn’t go through with the pregnancy but to say I am happy about the change would be a colossal understatement. I stand there with bated breath in my lungs and anticipation coursing through my veins while terror and excitement simultaneously thunder through my heart. Everything seems to be moving in bullet time, which is rather apt considering the force with which the moment hits me has a velocity I imagine to be akin to being shot. I gasp, I feel elation and pride radiate throughout my being and I exhale slowly as her heartbeat fills my eyes. This is love. There she is. Our baby. My dream. And, I swear to God, it is as if she is reaching out to me because the nurse can’t see her. She is still searching as she utters how strange it is that she can’t find the baby. I look at her and begin to question whether or not she is really qualified for this because here I am and I can see my baby, crystal clear. Yet, nobody else can. Nobody. Just me. Until I point to the location where my heart beats.
I gasp again and return to the nightmare. That memory seems to fill my nostrils and my throat all at once, threatening to suffocate me from within. I really did fail her. That moment felt like she knew what was coming and was reaching out to her daddy to help her; and I failed. She ended up being punished for the sin of her father because she had the great misfortune to be conceived by one that her, would-be grandfather is disgusted by.
I try to regain some semblance of reality as I look into her eyes and feel, what remains of my heart, shatter all over again. I feel the rich, potency of my own pain concocted with anger, rage, guilt, disappointment and disbelief build up within before rushing to freedom. I honestly didn’t think I could cry any more than I already had. Now, I have no idea how I’ll ever stop.