On Christmas

snapped.

She had repeated herself.

Different generation.

Same cruelty.

“My father knew?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And he stayed.”

“Yes.”

I closed my eyes.

In some ways, that hurt worse.

My mother was the knife.

My father was the hand that never stopped it.

Aunt Susan sent me old photographs that evening. One showed me at about five years old, sitting on her couch in oversized continue reading …