Angry Voices  − March, 1990

He sits alone, lost in the middle of a vast bed whose edges disappear into the dark. He doesn’t understand why his parents are so mad at one another. From another room, another world miles and miles from him, he hears them scream, and as his eyes well up and his breath hitches, he’s certain they’re yelling because of something that he did.

He pulls the blanket about him and tries to shrink into the mattress, intent on disappearing, so that he’ll be gone when his mother comes back. He doesn’t want her to yell at him the way she was his father. So he makes himself small, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them.

When his mother comes into the room a few moments later, his face is wet with tears and he is sobbing. She sees him there on the bed, alone and afraid, and she begins to cry too. She scoops her child into her arms and whispers into his ear that she is sorry.