Free Pieces of Him by Alice Tribue Page A

him. I get the sense that maybe his fear of being a single dad to an infant is behind his decision. He said, I didn’t sign up to be a single dad. He never said he didn’t want to be a dad, he didn’t say he didn’t love his son or that he thought he would be better off without him. Maybe he just needs someone to put this into perspective for him.
    “Yeah, but she’s gone.” His irritation with me is clear. I don’t give a fuck.
    “Yeah, she’s gone. She died for him. She died so that you could have him. It was a gift. The most precious fucking gift you could ever receive and you’re throwing it away because you don’t feel like being a single dad?”
    “I didn’t ask for this,” he says through clenched teeth.
    “He didn’t either,” I half yell pointing my finger at the sleeping baby. “But he’s here now.”
    “I don’t have time for this shit,” he says blowing me off as he picks up the carrier. “Thanks for stopping by, but like I said before, I have to go.”
    “Yeah. Maybe you should give him away,” I mumble as I turn and walk toward my door.”
    “What did you say?” he calls after me. I turn and take two steps toward him again.
    “I said, maybe you should give him away. A kid should have a parent who loves him, not someone who can’t be bothered to love him, someone who’ll just tolerate him. That beautiful baby deserves more than that.” I deliver my parting blow, walk into my apartment, close the door behind me, and burst into tears. It may seem stupid, but I cry for that girl who I saw happily entering that dickhead’s apartment last week.
    I cry because she was probably so excited to be a mother, to have her baby and start her family and that promise was taken away from her.
    I cry because she’ll never get to see him grow. Instead, she had to leave him with a father who can’t even appreciate what a miracle he is.
    I cry for that little baby because I know exactly what it’s like to have a parent who is just so fucking, FUCKING selfish.
    I cry for myself as much as I cry for them, and I hope that precious little boy will get a better outcome than I did.

 
    Max~
     
    All this stress must finally be catching up with me. Something is obviously wrong with me. What kind of fucked-up person shares all that kind of shit with a poor, unsuspecting woman who was just trying to be nice? Me. That’s who! In my defense, all that shit just came falling out of my mouth. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I secure the car seat into its base and get in the car. Pulling out of the parking lot, I head over to the crematorium for the small service planned for Keri. I think that maybe this is the reason why I lost it on Emelia. She caught me just as I was getting ready to leave so I could attend this thing. And this … this is the last thing I want to be doing right now. Before now, I could just be in denial about the whole situation. I could tell myself that Keri wasn’t really gone, but this kind of makes it real. This gives it a finality that not even I can deny. I guess her death is just a hard truth for me to accept. It’s not like I ever loved her, and I probably never would have ... not really. Not in the way she would have wanted, and I couldn’t tell you why, couldn’t put my finger on it. She was smart, beautiful, and was good in bed, but she didn’t excite me. Well, obviously, she excited me enough, but I mean the everyday kind of way. She was comfortable in her little apartment that she had to share and comfortable with her job that would never give her financial security. The only thing I ever saw her work hard for was Xander, and at times, me. I think that if she had showed that amount of passion for the other areas of her life then maybe I would have been able to see her differently. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care for her in my own way; maybe I did even love her a little in the only way I could. But I knew from the start she would never be the one. Not that I ever