Alex

(A oneshot with spoilers to Back in the World)

By J.D.

How can I explain why I did what I did?  I see the pain on your face, the hurt and anger in your eyes and I know you think I'm to blame for causing it.   What if I had gotten home just five minutes later?  Why is it so hard for me to tell you how afraid I was that we could have lost you?  Why is it so hard for me to tell you what I'm feeling?  I watch you walk away without a word, and I want to throw open my door and run after you.  I want to wrap my arms around you and promise to keep you safe, but I can't, not yet.

I have the day to myself and as I wander the empty apartment I can't help but see the reminders of the day before, the missing television and stereo, the other things that mattered more to him then you.  I pray you will never know that of course.  Even though you heard the words I hope you never understand the meanings behind them.  They are only things to us, and I would have given him more had he asked to keep him from taking you from us.

I wish I could explain what the loss of you would have meant to your mother, what it would have meant to me.  What the loss of a child means to any parent.  Someday I will share with you what it meant to me when I suffered that loss so many years ago.  How the loss of my own children left me little more then a hollow shell for far too many of those years.  Someday I will explain how I would have given everything to spare your mother knowing those feelings as I did.  Someday I will tell you how you and your mother have begun to fill that emptiness with something I thought never to feel again. 

It's too soon for you to hear any of this now, to understand any of this, all you have room for is the anger at me for sending your father away and the pain at knowing he left without you.  I stand in your room and I wonder how far I would have gone to stop him had he not gone willingly.  Then, in that same thought, I know I would have gone as far as necessary because nothing would have allowed me to let him take you from us as long as I drew breath.  I hope it will never come to that, but the possibility is there, hiding in the darkness just out of sight.

I know you are too young to understand any of this now, and nothing I can say will undo what you saw.  I only wish I could explain how much it hurts to see the anger you feel towards me etched on your face.  An anger directed at me when I know I was acting only to protect you.  I wish I could explain what it feels like to endure the silence as your feelings simmer inside of you.  I can only hope that you will allow your mother to give you the comfort you need, that you will tell her what you can't, or won't tell me.  More importantly I hope that in time you will forgive me for doing what I had to do to keep you safe.