On Father's Day, she cradles his head in her hands and tells him to move on.

Exactly sixteen days later, he does.

But the point is that she stays with him.

On Father's Day, she pushes her face into his shoulder and mumbles, "We did the right thing," and maybe they did, maybe they're martyrs, maybe they're masochists, but the point is that they did the right thing. The right thing is the best thing for everyone and the best thing for their faceless, nameless child. It's the best thing for them.

(That's what everyone says and they don't deserve to be unhappy, she signed the papers, so did he, she curled the Q and he held the pen and they did it all by themselves, two children who think they're old enough to understand the world.)

So on Father's Day, she pretends not to cry and he pretends he doesn't love her and they pretend that it was the right thing, and they pretend they don't care about the other half of themselves that they left in the pink blanket at midnight.

She holds his head (and his hands and his face and waits for it to crumble under the touch) and she whispers, "We did the right thing," and he believes her a little, just enough.

He doesn't remember what his life was like before he started loving her.

All the same.

(On the night they left her behind — and here's a secret — he sat in the parking lot with her hand still entwined with his, and the rain came down in sheets, and she watched, and everyone stared, as he cried until he screamed, as he screamed until his voice was gone and his feral cries echoed throughout the town that didn't want them anymore.)

On Father's Day —

He's forgotten how to cry.