Domestics

Every time I heard my mother cry I would come barreling down the stairs to square up to my father, both of us fuming on the edge of a fight. As a child when you have yet to experience the intricate petty traumas of a relationship. The world is clear-cut, not a puzzle of pitfalls where you must grapple with the right light the way you would pull up a kitten from a well. Mother was no kitten, and a boy cannot save a woman who plays cat and mouse games. Father was a good man made weak, worn out by doing the best he could. Their battles were a joust, their fighting had rules of engagement. Boys and their mothers also have rules, they agree to die for each other, even when there is so very little to die for.