whole childhood, I had watched him fold himself smaller behind whatever my mother decided and told myself he was gentle.
That night, I understood gentle was simply the word we used because we didn’t want to name what it really was.
I said, “Okay.”
I don’t know why.
Maybe because there was nothing left to negotiate.
A person can only beg in a stairwell for so long before begging starts to cost more than the help itself.
I hung up.
At midnight, I drove ninety minutes down a dark Route
