I was forced to remember the last few months with him. Summer was turning into Fall. School doors had opened and their playgrounds were full of screams and shrieks at lunchtime. We could hear them, waking us too early, from our tiny one room apartment.

I peered out the window, numb to the chill leftover from the night before where we were too wasted to turn on the heater. I watched the children scurry around and told him I wanted to have one. That would make my life complete.

Even in my disheveled state, my biological clock was ticking loudly. I made a game of it, trying to have a baby. I shoved the weed, the beer, the liquor, the needles away and tackled him to the bed.

But once I was sober, and he was not, I saw that he could never be a father to a child. He might have sired one, but he was incapable of parenting one. The pregnancy test turned pink, and I turned tail and ran, never looking back.

I looked into the clear eyes of the man before me, the one I told my son was gone forever, and said, “He is.”