Levi Seems Broken

After court this week, Levi came over to my house around 4 p.m. just as he said he would. I was surprised that he actually came. I was pretty sure he was going to stand me up.

I was standing on the porch when he pulled into the driveway. When I saw him, I got that same old sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It felt awkward and foreign as we tried to keep our distance from one another, unsure as how to greet each other. It's weird when you find yourself in that situation with someone that you once shared such intimate moments with.

I brought him inside to where Adrian was. Adrian looked at him and kind of shied away and hid. That made me so sad. I asked Levi if he wanted to hold him and he said, "No, I don't like to hold babies."

I wasn't sure what to do when Levi said, "Put him down, let me see what he does." What did he think a baby does? I put Adrian down and we watched him crawled over to the TV, stand up, and start watching "The Wonderpets."

After about a minute, Levi broke the silence to ask me if Adrian does any tricks. I swear to God, he said that! That's when I told him, "Yeah, he wakes up every morning and cooks breakfast." Levi just snickered.

Then came the same old conversation. He told me again that he's sorry, but he just can't deal with this right now. He kept telling me that I have to "chill out" and that he won't do anything if I try to "force" him to.

We were sitting outside talking when I finally mustered up the courage to look into his eyes. I was shocked by what I saw. The man looks like a shadow of who he used to be. He looks old and broken. He looks like he's had his soul sucked out of him.

Seeing him like that actually made me feel bad for him. Seeing his lack of interest and connection with our son made my heart ache. He stayed for about an hour, gave me a hug goodbye and left.