Chapter 20: The Rejected Child at the Threshold of Darkness

“Whiskey runs through his veins, and the house reeks of strangers’ perfume.”

— The Morph

The haze from cigarette smoke gradually gave way to a different kind of blurring as the day turned into dusk. The normal beer in the evening turned into liquid amber, a sight that belied its true character but was quite alluring. What had begun as an occasional consolation, a simple approach to soothe the sharp edges of the day with a glass of whiskey, had morphed into something more devious.  Alcohol had become a nightly necessity rather than a choice. Soothing himself, Alex claimed it was “stress management,” even as morning meetings brought pounding misery from inexplicable headaches, slightly trembling hands, and gnawing self-reproach. The blend of nicotine and alcohol, coupled with a worsening sleep rhythm, swelled with regret’s baggage, fueling an escalating paranoia about his performance, client satisfaction, financial security, and the smoldering hearth of domestic quarrels.

His phone became both a lifeline and a tormentor—he'd compulsively checked messages and answered calls almost 24/7, convinced that missing a single message could spell disaster in a workplace. Even during rare family dinners, his leg would bounce anxiously under the table, his mind already racing toward the next deadline, the next delivery car, the next crisis—real or imagined. This relentless tide of self-destructive habits and obsessively controlling thoughts threatened to wash away the delicate balance they had strived so hard to achieve, casting not just a shadow but an expanding toxic cloud over their hard-won harmony. 

In the kitchen where Anatig prepared dinner, Alex’s return from work again brought a sharp reek of alcohol, a fermented fog that filled the air, betraying his sinking into quicksand. She froze, the knife in her hand trembling, remembering the man who once made her laugh and promised a safe life, now a stranger consumed by angry demons and destroying their home’s peace. “How do I reach him?” she said softly to herself, fearing his paranoia and nervous outbursts only deepened the chasm between them.

At the time, the company he was working for made a decision to merge two rental car stations into one. To optimize the rental procedures, save money  because of the political climate between two station managers, Alex knew very well he will not be able to work in other station. And suddenly his four years of service as a fleet manager culminated in an ultimatum: relocate to London or face uncertainty. Thinking of his settlement here in Cardiff, his family happy here. Relocation will be very difficult, suggesting that to Anatig and somehow intuitively Alex knew her answer before she gave the answer, Anatig had a job here, Vilhelm had good school and her sister was nearby ‘’No I don’t want to relocate’’ she was categorical. Alex had to face tough decision while his managers where haunting for his verdict, pushing him toward an auditing firm that promised new sanctuary. Alex made strong wiled conclusion and quit rental company, while leveraging his stay in Cardiff and keeping his family happy he decided do something completely different. He joined retail auditing firm as a safe harbor instead, it became another golden cage.  Success came like a double-edged sword, gleaming with promotions but sucking blood in twenty-hour workdays. Soon Alex's life became a blur of numbers, auditing deadlines, countless miles of travel across UK and the acrid taste of nicotine, coffee gone cold and  countless gallons of red bull.

The evening when his son’s words pierced the fog: “Dad, when will I see you?” The question echoed in their house stairwell. “Dad? When I go to bed… you come home from work, when I wake up… you’re already gone to work.” Alex had no answer for Vilhelm; he only promised to take him out on the weekend—one of the promises that were growing harder to keep. Unnoticed, the invisible weight of work melted his nights into a cocktail of whiskey, prostitutes, drugs, and regret in nightclubs. Soothing an incomprehensible pain of heart and inadequacy, feeling his contribution to the family always fell short.

And then, Anatig’s unexpected pregnancy hit like an earthquake, splintering their home’s foundation with aftershocks of silence and unspoken resentment that neither could name. Alex, lost in the rubble, couldn’t pinpoint when their warmth turned to frost, but Anatig’s disappointed gaze—sharp as a blade—cut deeper than any failure he’d known. Their once-vibrant home, filled with Vilhelm’s laughter and shared dreams, now echoed with grief, its walls as cold as the whiskey Alex sipped to dull his shame. Anatig drifted through rooms like a ghost, her touch absent, her eyes avoiding his. Desperate to redeem himself, Alex chased financial honesty through meticulous tax declarations, vowing no more lies about his self-employed income. Yet, as he sat alone, the weight of his inadequacy grew heavier, each honest number a reminder of the family he was failing to save.

The pregnancy test lay on their bathroom counter like a live grenade. Two pink lines that should have brought joy instead filled their small house with suffocating dread. Alex watched Anatig's trembling hands while holding the plastic stick—a moment so different than the pregnancy with Vilhelm.  Alex always wanted Vilhelm to have a sister. The heaviness of their financial reality, Alex's drug and alcohol abuse, and their deteriorating relationship crushed any glimpse of hope.  And the financial pressures were enough to break their resolve spirit.

"We can barely feed ourselves," Anatig whispered, tears cutting silent paths down her cheeks. "And Vilhelm..." The discussion that followed was a mix of blame and desperation—numbers scrawled on papers, voices breaking, dreams crumbling. Each word felt like spiting shattered glass on each other. The decision, when it came, wasn't really a choice at all. It was a surrender—the abortion. The deepest pain for Alex was Anatig’s tears after the abortion, each trembling sigh a blade of guilt slicing through his heart, knowing the rejected child at the threshold of darkness would never be theirs. In the clinic room, she lay while he sat beside her, staring at the ceiling, where the sharp scent of antiseptic and grief choked their faded dreams. “How did we get here?” Anatig murmured, but Alex, unresponsive, sinking into his quicksand, only remained silent, crushed by emptiness and heartbreaking guilt.

The questions hovered in the air like a growing poison cloud. The life they built was crumbling, not from neglect but from a subtle warfare of gender expectations. Anatig wielded her femininity like a weapon, cloaked in the righteousness of modern empowerment.  She never called their house a home—a deliberate semantic choice cutting deeper than any outright rejection. Alex couldn't understand this new battlefield where his traditional contributions meant nothing, where his masculinity itself had become a crime. 

He watched the transformation of the innocent girl he'd fallen in love with into someone who measured his worth against an impossible standard of modern manhood. She wanted him strong but not dominant, successful but not ambitious, present but not controlling. In the house and at work, Alex had to make different a choice, to dominate or let it slide, to insert or forget. The real emotional warfare became visible in the small moments: his opinions dismissed as "masculine fragility," his parenting criticized as "toxic patriarchy," his career dedication labelled as "emotional unavailability." When he tried to assert any position at home, Anatig would smile that knowing smile—the one that said she knew better, that his male perspective was inherently flawed—before systematically dismantling his dignity in front of Vilhelm.

Alex’s compliance and reluctance to challenge or question her choices carved deeper wounds, not only in his emotional self-worth but also in Anatig’s emotional inaccessibility. Both hoped—he longed to be loved, while she yearned to be safe and understood. Alex’s toxic attachment allowed Anatig to dictate terms, never compromising with his opinions if they didn’t suit her or she didn’t want them. Alex found himself haunted not just by what-ifs but by deep guilt—the ghost of his former self, a man who started believing in his own worth. The guilt festered like an open wound, not just from failure but from the realization that perhaps he was exactly what she claimed: someone who was never enough. Not in bed, not in the house, not with Vilhelm, not anywhere. When he sought escape in increasingly destructive ways—vodka became breakfast and cocaine his midnight companion. In dimly-lit bars and strangers' beds, he sought not just oblivion but validation—any proof that he wasn't the monster of privilege and patriarchy she painted him to be.

“Just a working trip,” he'd lie to Anatig about his late nights, the lipstick stains hidden beneath fresh shirts, the hotel receipts buried in his wallet, and maxed-out credit card bills on strippers. With each adultery, another brick was added to the wall that separated them, using mortar that was a mixture of guilt and remorse. The ladies, who were nameless and faceless in his drug-hazed memories, were nothing more than bandages placed over a conscience that was bleeding and started talked to him in his nightmares.

Anatig's eyes, once bright with love, grew distant, then cold. She could smell the perfume of strangers on his collar, see the powder residue on his credit cards. Their bed became a battlefield of silence, each lying awake, oceans apart. The ghost of their unborn child haunted the space between them, an absence more present than either could bear.  "I'm working late," became his mantra, but the truth was he couldn't face home anymore, where he was a monster. In bathroom stalls with rolled-up bills, in anonymous apartments with women whose names he'd forget by morning, Alex tried to outrun his choices. But the mirror showed only a coward, a man who'd lost not just a potential life but his very soul in the process.

“Your debt!” Anatig’s voice struck like lightning, illuminating Alex’s inner isolation, where guilt, smoldered with his recent failures. At thirty-three, the age of Christ, the universe delivered brutal poetry: a £17,000 tax bill arrived the same week Bell’s Palsy froze half his face, a divine sign of his collapse after years of whiskey, drugs, and Red Bull-fueled nights. Housebound with steroids, Alex stared at the ceiling, his spirit as paralyzed as his smile, unable to answer Anatig’s tearful gaze or erase the weight of their shattered dreams. As the days melted into nights, Alex embarked on an introspective journey, sifting through the layers of his life. What had he prioritized? What had he neglected? What had led to this? During his convalescence, he grappled with these questions, each one serving as a step towards a deeper understanding of his true priorities.

           The mirror on the bedroom closet door revealed not just Alex’s frozen face but a soul stalled at the threshold of darkness, where the rejected child, lost to abortion, warned he’d lose everything without change. In the crucible of forced solitude, steroids burning through his veins, this interlude became an alchemy for transformation, inviting him to reimagine a life worth living. Yet nothing sparked joy—no drive, no light—only Alex’s whisper, “Why?” echoing with Anatig’s tears and Vilhelm’s distant voice in his frozen heart.

 NEXT WEEK! Chapter 21: The Silent Fall

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