My coffee has gone cold. How long ago did the waitress bring it? Why is it so sweet? Did I absentmindedly add sugar again? Nevertheless, I wave towards my waitress who replaces my cold cup with a boiling hot one. I surround the cup with both my palms, looking to curb the spine-tingling December chill. I’m back in New York again, and once again I’m at my favorite diner, sitting at the counter because my favorite booth is taken.
The trademark plate of maple syrup drizzled flapjacks arrives and I begin to work my way down the three layers with gusto. “Welcome to New York,” is what this plate always says to me, because that is the meal I had with my father when we made the trip down here from Cincinnati. “Welcome to the land of dreams.” I take a sip of my coffee before it goes cold again, its warmth eases my stomach, which is now doing somersaults on the back of an unexpected sugar rush. I take off my cardigan then put it back on again, unsure of whether I’m hot or cold. My ex-wife is late again. That’s now 20 minutes that I could’ve spent with Gabriela, my beautiful angel, whom I only get to see on weekends. Today we have plans to go to Coney Island, spend the whole day there. After the blank space that my divorce has left in my heart, Gabi is my only refuge.
You might say I’m guilty of spending more time with myself than I should. Being alone, I’ve learned, makes you realize things you never wanted to know. Like being closer to 40 than 30, like having nothing to call your own, or maybe like being so fed up with your life style that you feel you just want to do everything over again. But whenever you try to start anew, reality jumps right out of the woods, “It’s too late,” it says, “All you had to do was stay with your wife and daughter, then maybe you wouldn’t be feeling so alone.” I stop myself right then and there, I’ve been down that road before. I know where my self-questioning would lead me and I need to shake it off.
“I wish you could forget about all the bad blood between the two of you,” my mom had said, about my failing marriage. “Never in your wildest dreams will you find someone as good as her.”
“I can’t Ma, it’s too late.” I’d say.
“You love Gabriela don’t you?”
“More than anything.”
“Well this is how you get the girl to stay in your life,” she’d press on, “If you get divorced this love you share with her is practically being thrown out the window.”
I would stay silent, suppressing the monster that is hungry again inside me, asking for more fuel, more tick, more crank, more of that destructive white powder.
“I know places where you can get clean, son,” she’d say for the hundredth time.
