You were gone from me before I ever fully confirmed that you existed. I don't know if you left me because you thought it was a lock that I would have made you go away. It would not have been, in spite of everything I did with the Pills and the condoms and the pulling out. It would not have been, once I had a field of blue or a urine-stained plus sign. True, I was never in that frame of mind to meet the awesome responsibilities which you would have required, but then I was never charged with that requirement. I might have been able to do it, but it would have been just the two of us for sure.
I have always imagined you as Dmitri or Natalia, partly based on the love your father and I share for anything Russian Romantic. Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture is something we both a
