A dead-beat dad abandons his wife and children . Make me sympathize with him .

He was n't always this way, so heartless and willfully mindless to what he'd left behind. Yet, in the trail of his sorrow march from all he'd known, he had never been so heartfelt and mindful. 
 
 The idea of another child frightened him, consumed him. He held his wife closer to him than ever before. He whimpered, weakened by the insecurities of his plaguing inadequacies. So worried was he that the still young, blanketed baby in the room across the hall was more secure than the dead-beat enveloped in a blanket of his own: the suffocating fear of repetition, the debilitating failure to forget, and the promise of love he found anew. 
 
 
 She was his second wife, a point neither could forget. It was to be his second, yet only child. It was n't his fault, she reminded him. It never was, was it? That line repeated over and over, an unending metronome bounced between ends of guilt and self-forgiveness. It was n't his fault. It *was* his fault. He could n't do it again. His first love never found enough ways to forgive him. He spiraled. 
 
 
 She saved him: from himself, from a crippled state of nothingness, from the sleepless nights filled with self-hatred that seeped through his longing desire to forgive and be forgiven. He owed her, he felt. But he could n't do it. The days that followed the ceremony of `` who'd you tell'' and obligatory congratulations were not accompanied by the expected feeling of new life. But, he was there in body, smile intact, for nine long months. He loved her, but he could n't love himself nor could he love a child that might one day be him. 
 
 
 He saw the child's innocence, the way its tears held the light through the window. His heart could never be full enough, his hands soft enough... he could n't do it. Three-months old, it had been an entire year. His dirty hands could be cleaned no more. 
 
 
 He shut the door and left a shoebox aside the doorstep. They were the smallest, white-buckled taps he could find; 2 pairs. He left one for the baby girl, twirling the other around his fingers, the tiny straps dwarfed by his hands. Drawing the ignition, he held his head and reached to put the second pair around the rear-view. It would n't fit. He maneuvered the strap, then the heel. He grew frustrated as he continued to press with one hand on the steering wheel, the other fumbling about, trembling. The buckle snapped, quickly dropping between his shaking feet. He looked down, slowly dropped his arm as tears fell in unison, and reluctantly pressed his toes against the cold metal. 
 
 
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 **edit: ** First WP ( just found the sub today ). I've never been much of a creative writer so I really would appreciate any suggestions. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

