Page 23 of No More Love Songs

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I have no idea what’spossessing me to force this woman to delve deep into herself, except I guess it really bothered me to see her so lost this morning. I’ve been there, that moment you feel like maybe you wasted years of your life chasing something that was never meant for you, and if you were wrong about that, what else have you been wrong about? It shakes your trust in yourself in a way that nothing else possibly could. It makes you question your faith beyond your own decision making, because what higher power would allow you to go so far off course? More than that, what higher power would bring you into this life wanting something you could never have?

“I hope that face isn’t the result of you trying to come up with question number three,” she teases, breaking me out of my thoughts and back to the present. “If it’s troubling you when it’s just an inquiry, what is it going to do to me having to come up with the response?”

“Wasn’t the questions,” I assure her.

“Then what?” She frowns. “Wait, am I allowed to ask questions too? I don’t want to screw things up when I’m this close to accessing your secrets spots to retreat to.”

“Do you ever not complete something you set out to do?” I chuckle. I don’t need her to answer that one. I already know the answer. “Yes, of course, you can ask questions.” Which also means I’m agreeing to answer the one she’s already asked. “My face,” I take the official last drink of my coffee - always good to the last sip, “may have looked a little confused because I was silently answering a question I needed to ask myself.”

“Which was?” Curiosity lights up her face. It’s a good look on her.

“Why I feel so inclined to poke around in your personal life.” Can’t ask someone to earn your trust and then lie to them.

“That’s a good question,” she says, but the tease in her voice is unmistakable. “What reason did you come up with?”

More honesty. “That I’ve been where you are now. And I know it’s not an easy place to be.” I meet her eyes and hold her gaze. “And asking myself some of these questions helped me get out of it.”

“That’s a good reason,” she says quietly. “What was it for you? How did you end up there?”

“When my wife left.” The extent of the damage loving that woman did has lived inside me silently since. This may well be the first time I tell another human soul about it. “Wasn’t just that she cheated. That part I couldn’t ever even blame her for. Hell, I couldn’t blame her for any of it. Even when I wanted to.” And I wanted to often. “Jessica, my wife, suffered from anxiety and bipolar disorder, but she wasn’t diagnosed until about six months after we met. By then she’d been self-medicating with alcohol and drugs for so long, her addiction was as big a disease she was fighting as anything.” I kick at the rocks along our path. “In the beginning she’d swear up and down she wanted to get better. And we tried it all. Rehab. Therapy. Hypnosis. Meds. More Rehab. She’d get well. And I’d think we found our way out of the maze. Then, something would trigger her, and she’d plummet right back to where she started. Sometimes, it felt like she fell deeper, harder after weeks of being on an even keel.”

Sky has her head down as she walks beside me. She hasn’t said a word since I started talking, but I catch her nod every so often and I can’t help but feel she knows exactly what I’m talking about.

“Then she got pregnant.” I’ll never forget the night she took that test. She’d been on a clean streak. Her meds were keeping her stable. We were happy. A baby seemed like the perfect light as we were coming out of our dark tunnel. “The day our daughter was born, and I held her in my arms, I just knew she would change our lives forever.” That was the moment I understood the depths of the love I was capable of. As a father. Ironically, it was the same moment I understood that what I thought was a natural, unbreakable, unconditional love you couldn’t turn off sometimes didn’t get turned on in the first place. “It never bothered me that I wasn’t enough reason, enough of a good thing, enough love, enough joy, enough strength... enough of anything she’d fight for. Want to live for. But I was certain Aria would be. Instead, it did the complete opposite. She completely shut down. Wouldn’t hold the baby. Wouldn’t even look at her.” As much as it broke me to watch her break away from us, those first days I became Ari’s sole caregiver bonded us in a way nothing else ever could have.

“Post-partum depression?” Sky says softly when I’ve been silent for a while.

“We thought it was.” For months doctors tried to treat her. “But it wasn’t. It was her. She just

decided she was done. She’d taken one look at our baby and decided it would take too much to love her. Would mean never quitting on her recovery, never having another drink, and she just wasn’t willing to choose another person’s needs over what she wanted. Told me so herself the night we had it out for good. I’d gotten one too many anonymous calls about my wife’s whereabouts to let it slide anymore. She’d been out of control for days, flying high on a manic streak and I knew it was just a matter of time before she crashed and disappeared in some hole somewhere. Maybe home. Maybe some motel I’d have to track her down in. Either way, it was time.”

I shake my head. “I could have forgiven her for just about anything. It’s not like I was naïve to the battles she was fighting. Or that partners cheat. Hell, I was a touring musician when I met her. Nearly everyone I knew was cheating on someone with a new someone from town to town.”

“Did you?” her questions squeaks out when I break for breath.

“No.” I shake my head. “Don’t get me wrong, I made plenty of my own mistakes, and I’m sure I was an asshole fifty different ways before I finally grew up and got my shit together, but cheating just wasn’t ever my thing. I just didn’t commit to anyone. Until I met my wife.”

“Love at first sight?” Her eyes still hold the hope of a romantic at heart, even as I’m telling her the wreckage my marriage ended in.

“No,” I admit. “Tell you the truth, I don’t really believe in that sort of thing.”

She looks almost hurt. “Probably smart.”

“I don’t think there’s any being smart when it comes to love.” I nudge her side with my elbow, trying to coax her back out of the funk she’s sinking herself into. “Plus, the first time I saw my wife she was puking into a trash can after partying too hard at a music festival I was performing at. Not exactly the sexiest of scenes.”

She giggles, then rushes to cover her mouth. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I laugh every time I think about it. Like, what the hell was I thinking?!” I couldn’t always laugh at it, but I figured out some time I ago it was a hell of a lot easier to laugh than constantly carry that anger with me.

She shrugs. “Maybe it was more love at first sight than you realize.”

“Would certainly account for my lapse in judgement,” I agree, “but I don’t think I can blame love. Mostly, I just felt bad for her and offered her a water bottle. That was my big opening line, by the way. ‘Want a water?’. Once we got to talking, I realized how messed up she was. Apparently, her friends had ditched her. So, there she was, wasted, puking and alone. And I guess my knight in shining armor syndrome kicked in.”

“Oh, that’s a rough condition,” she agrees, mocking me. “I should tell you, just judging by your actions today, you’re still pretty afflicted.”

“Wow.” I laugh, surprising myself. “I can’t believe you just said that to me. Maybe I’m just a nice guy.”

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