James Simmons had decided to kill himself.  In his opinion the part of his life worth living had long passed and for years now he’d been forcing himself through Hell without even being judged.  He’d decided not to do it anymore.

            He walked out onto the George Washington Bridge, stopping only when he was right between New York and New Jersey.  He liked the idea that maybe, just maybe, there’d be problems with reporting his death because they wouldn’t know which state to put on the forms.

            As he walked out over the water, the Hudson wind pulling at his hair and clothes, he itemized his life, double-checking to make sure that he hadn’t overlooked some good or redeemable quality, making sure that he truly did not have a reason to live anymore.

            He blamed it, at least partly, on money.  He’d never had much and never seemed to be able to hold on to it when he did.  For James, trying to save money was like trying to hold a gust of wind:  he never could hold it and couldn’t ever be sure he’d really had it in the first place. 

            His money problems, once a problem separate and apart from the others, had tainted all the other aspects of his life.  He tried not to blame it all on money.  He’d heard what people said about money not buying happiness, but he’d also learned that the lack thereof could ensure that happiness kept its distance.

            James leaned onto the railing, his elbows on the dirty metal, and spit out over the water, where the cold wind caught everything and pulled it away.  He looked down at the water, black and glossy as polished onyx, reflecting the moonlight.

            Maureen didn’t love him anymore; he knew that.  Sometimes he wondered if she’d ever cheated on him, but realized that, of course, she hadn’t.  She spent all of her time working two terrible paying jobs only to come home exhausted and sleep.  She had no time for affairs.  She wasn’t the type anyway, James knew.  Though a little part of him wanted her to be, wanted to put some of the blame for his unhappiness on Maureen for infidelity or drugs or some other terrible vice, he knew he couldn’t.  She was a good person…a hard worker…responsible.  She’d have been better off if she’d never met James, he was sure of that.

            He didn’t lose her love to another man or addiction; instead, she began to see him for the waste that he was…instead he lost her love to nothing at all.