Afterwards, I held you for longer than was strictly necessary, and contemplated your fluttering eyes, moving side to side as they followed your dreams, and I hoped your dreams were of happy things and not parental abandonment.

It broke my heart that I couldn't just do as you wished and leave. I worry it might have broken yours a bit too. I cried all the way to work, noticing only the dark and nasty parts of the world, like the dead squirrel flattened to the asphalt, its still-fluffy tail flapping around helplessly in the backdraft of all the cars passing it by.