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I wish I was braver. I wish I had the ability to end everything. Just make the world go dark for one final time.

I didn’t understand why I didn’t. Perhaps because I still had some small speck of hope somewhere in me. Or a deep burning fear that my children still needed me.

I had failed them. Failed at everything. Failed as a parent and a father and a human being. Failed at my company. My life’s work. I wondered what was actually left of me to kill off.

Nothing. Just skin and bones that were empty and cold.

I sat back down on my wrought iron garden furniture, not fighting as my body shut down. Maybe I was still breathing. Maybe I wasn’t. I truly didn’t care anymore.

A gust of air flowing over my body, water running down my face. The droplets of rain were warm against everything cold in the world. Summer. It was still summer. I tried to remember the date. Day. Week? Couldn’t even tell you what month it was.

I wondered how long I’d been sitting there and looked up, expecting to see an expanse of grey sky, instead discovering I wasn’t alone.

Perhaps I should have been startled by the presence of another human being in my space.

Two chairs. One for me, one for Veronica, who was no longer my wife, no longer here and no longer anyone I should care about.

Anger. All that futile anger.

He was just sitting there, in her chair, the man. Older, grey hair, dressed in a shirt and tie. Slacks.

He was getting soaked, the rain on his shirt spreading and merging into a never-ending pattern. Water ran down his face, joining the wet patches on his shirt, white turning a fleshy shade of grey. Apricot? Forsome reason, that made me smirk, not that he saw; he wasn’t looking at me.

That was when I noticed the cups. Two of them, one in each hand, which I only noticed because he raised one to his lips and took a sip. Steam swirled around his chin in a noisy pattern as the raindrops hit the surface of the hot liquid within.

Rain tea.My daughter would have laughed.

“Cup of tea. No sugar. I assumed, taking it you were not a sugar person.”

A sugar person? Was I? I had no idea, but he was holding a cup out to me, and I took it, accepting his gift of a hot drink on automatic. No feelings.

This was what I was now.Accepting. Day after day of having accepted my fate. Weak. Always weak.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he said in a deep but quiet voice. “Sitting outside in the rain. In a way, it’s soothing, like having an outside shower. Rinsing the day off.”

“The day,” I echoed. Was it morning still? Or had I somehow made it through another day? It felt like hours, days, centuries since I’d dragged myself out of bed.

“The day,” he repeated. “It’s seven at night. Still light and warm, just a heavy shower. Feels fine now, but we’ll both get cold eventually. Tea warms you up. Even in the rain.”

The man was nuts and made no sense.

I knew who he was, of course. He lived at number five. The door to his basement flat was open, the raindrops making spots on his wooden deck and garden furniture that was much like mine. A few children’s toys leant against the brick wall. I had similar items, now stored in the garage. I wondered if my son had outgrown that bike yet. He probably had. Another deep stab in my chest.

I remembered the tea in my hand and took a sip. It was hot against my lips and scalded my throat as it ran down. I couldn’t tell if it was on the inside of me or if I’d spilled the lot down my front.

I wondered why I didn’t care.

He didn’t seem to mind, sitting there staring at the trees against the back wall of the gardens. A train thundered past somewhere out there in the world. He paid it no attention, this man, all wet and weathered. A man who had seen a bit of life. Perhaps he’d gone through his own traumas, cried in the rain on a rusting garden chair, like me.

Probably nothing like me.

“I’ve been where you are, numerous times,” he said as if he’d read my mind. “It’s a very lonely place. I thought, if I sat here next to you for a while, you might not feel so lonely.”

“I see.” That was all my brain could muster up in response.

“You can ask me to leave, if you prefer?”

Well spoken. Wise. Polite, I’d give him that. Words? I had no more of them to give.