REDAMANCY [h.s. au]

02

"It makes me tremble. To think back.
I remember exactly how I thought life would be"
- Anne Carson

⭑Harry⭑

"Ducks!" Ivy shouts, pointing her tiny finger over to the water where a few of them are swimming amongst the swans. She pulls at the sleeve of my navy coat, her blue-green eyes large with excitement, "Daddy, can I go play?"

"Of course you can," I say, crouching down next to her impatient little body, buttoning up her floral coat before she runs off. "Please be careful, though!" I warn her as she scampers off toward the grassy area next to the water.

I'm still not used to her newfound independence. It fills me with dread and immense pride. It's difficult letting her explore the world; I know its something every child must do, but after the dissolution of her mother and I's marriage, I've been extra protective, wanting to keep her from the horrors of the world. My guilt for the divorce and its impact on her eats away at me most nights while she's sound asleep in her bed as I mindlessly watch television and drink a glass of red wine alone.

I don't feel guilty for ending a marriage that was devoid of love. Truthfully, Melissa and I should never have gotten married in the first place. My heart was never fully in it, always with someone else, but I didn't know what else to do.

I do feel a gnawing guilt for the little girl whose family is living in different countries and for the little girl whose mother was more than okay leaving her in London with me.

And then, of course, there's the spiraling guilt that's spread to every crevice of my limbs in the five years that have passed since leaving Holland that one summer evening. I live with regrets strapped to my back and words stuck in my throat, heavy with the kind of longing that poems are written about.

I'm the perpetrator and victim of my own pain, took a sharp knife and pushed it straight into my chest knowing full well what I was doing to myself when I left Holland to chase a frivolous dream in America. I knew what I was doing when I wrote her a letter but chose not to send it. I knew what I was doing when I met Melissa and asked her to marry me three months later. I knew what I was doing when we eloped. Every instance shoved that knife deeper and deeper.

Maybe I thought by piercing my own heart over and over, it'd bleed out all the love I still had for Holland.

It didn't work though.

And now, I'm a divorced twenty-eight(almost twenty-nine) year old single father who's still into his ex-girlfriend. The kind of life every man dreams of.

The only thing I don't regret in life is Ivy. I know if I never met her mom, she wouldn't be here, so in a way, I am grateful my life took that detour, however heartbreaking it was to realize that it wasn't Holland who would be dressed up in white for me, it wouldn't be Holland giving me a child.

But, Ivy is the most important person to me. She's got this spritely personality, always laughing and skipping around. She resembles me, except her eyes are a combination of her mother and I's, an oceanic green-blue that melts my heart and has me agreeing to almost all of her whims and fancies. She's just the best, most perfect human being.

I walk slowly towards her, watching her giggle as the ducks get closer, wondering how she's already three years old.

I wonder how it's already been a year since the divorce, how it's been four years since meeting Melissa, how it's been five years since seeing-

I'd recognize the delicate curve of that profile anywhere, the way her cheeks lift, the way her lips part with a soft laugh, the way her nose scrunches.