The Falling Man

I watched as he stared into her room, a blank expression on his face.

“Her name’s Katrina,” I spoke quietly, looking down at my hands. They were wringing themselves over and over again.

He didn’t speak, just kept staring into the room.

“She’s four now, her birthday was in May.”

He exhaled loudly, and looked away from the room, changing his gaze to what ever was down the hall.

I shifted from one foot to the other, uncertain of what else there was to say. I wanted him to just react, but he had turned into this emotionless drone once I had pointed into the room.

“She’s my daughter, then,” he stated, tucking his hands inside his pockets.

I nodded, “She looks exactly like you. She had your nose, and your hair, and your eyes-”

I was cut off by his gaze, the one that burned right through me. His eyes were narrowed into slits, and his hands were now balled into fists.

“You’ve been hiding her from me for four years? This is why you cut me out of your life, Ana? Because you’ve been taking care of my daughter?” His voice was getting louder and louder, and I could see the vein protruding from his forehead.

My eyes nervously darted from the floor, to my hands, then back to his eyes, which were still angrily waiting for my reply.

“I just wanted you to have a normal life, Gerard. We were so young, we still are. I just wanted you to be able to experience life without having to be tied down by a kid.”

“Part of experiencing life is dealing with your mistakes! And this is one of the mistakes we have together. That means we deal with this together! Not you just figure out how to take care of her on your own!”

“She’s my child as well, Gerard. My mistake too. If I wanted to deal with this alone, I should’ve been able to!” I shouted back at him, wondering where this was all going to go. Was he even going to meet her? Would he bother to become involved in her life at all?

“Then why do you even need me here, Ana? If you’ve got everything under fucking control, why the hell did you even call me?” He shouted out of frustration, slamming his fist into the wall and causing the glass in the windows to quake.

“Do you want money or something? ‘Cause you and I both know I don’t have any!”

“Gerard Way!” I nearly shouted, but my voice had lowered to a dull roar, seeing that the nurses were beginning to look over at us and wonder if they should intervene.

“We don’t need your money, and I am insulted that you would even suggest such as thing,” I hissed, “It’s as if you don’t even know me.”

“Well, apparently I don’t,” he shot back, “Because I never thought you would be one to hide a child from her father.”

“Gerard,” I groaned, rubbing my face with my hands and feeling the skin stretch slightly, “This has been so hard on me, you’ve got to understand that.”

“Oh, really?” He raised his eyebrows, “Because I thought you could handle this all on your fucking own.”

I glared at him, choosing to ignore his last comment, “She wants to meet you, Gerard. All she wants is you. She has been asking about her father since the day I showed her that picture of us.”

His eyebrows slowly lowered, “She knows about me?”

I nodded, rubbing my face again as I began to tear up at the thought of the memory, “She had this babysitter, who’s father was my ex-boss, and she was talking on the phone to him one day and Katrina asked who she was talking to, and she said her father. Then, Kat came home asking what a father was. It took a little bit of explaining, but when I whipped the picture of us out she got it. And she kept the picture.”

“She kept the picture?”

I smiled sadly, thinking about it in it’s thin, metal frame, “She keeps it on her nightstand. Looks at it every day.”

He looked in the room again, smiling softly at her resting body, then turning back to me as his smile began to fade.

“I could’ve been there from the start, you know. I wouldn’t have deserted you. Do you remember in the car that night? I meant what I said. I wasn’t saying it to be nice, or to comfort you or anything, I said I’d stay with you and I meant it. Did you think I was lying, Ana? Did you think I’d leave anyways?”

I shook my head, my voice quavering, “I knew you would be there if you had to. But you were giving me mixed signals, Gerard. You were looking for some scapegoat. What else was I supposed to think?”

“Don’t you put this on me,” His voice was beginning to rise again, and my eyes darted from his to the nurses desk then back to his, “This is no way my fault! You chose to keep her from me! You’ve been hiding her all along!”

I took a deep breath, looking away from him as the tears fell uncontrollably from my eyes, “I was only trying to do what was right for all of us.”

“And what was right was keeping a daughter away from her father for four years?”

“I was trying, Gerard!” I shouted, “I was fucking trying! But don’t think it wasn’t hard on me! All the nights she’d cry for you, and all the times she asked to see you, and I just had to say ‘no’. I disappointed her again and again, and it’s hurt a fucking lot.”

I sniffled a bit, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, “Look. I’m just trying to fix things now. I’m not asking for you’re money, or for your forgiveness from me. All I want it for you to be in her life now. She loves you so much, Gerard, and she doesn’t even know you. All she wants is her father. I understand if you want to leave, and never see either of us again, but please, could you just stay for a little while until she waked up and spend some time with her?”

He stayed silent for what seemed like years, leaning against the wall and folding his arms across his chest. His eyes became distant clouds, and I couldn’t read any emotion in them whatsoever.

But finally he spoke, his voice cracking and quiet.

“Alright.”

I looked at him with widened eyes, sincerely shocked he had agreed, “Are you serious?”

He nodded, his eyes softening as he gazed through the glass panel in the door at her, “She’s my daughter. And she needs me. I’m not an asshole, I’m not going to just leave her,” he took my hand into his and rubbed it gently with his thumb, “And I’m not going to leave you. We can do this, you know.”

I smiled at him weakly, unsure of what to say.

He pulled me close to him, still surprising me, and hugged me tightly.

“We can do this. We’ve been through Hell today. We can make it through this too.”