Today's writing

Russ. What would he have to say about her behavior of late? He always thought she was such an innocent and she supposed that during the time they shared she was. When did her innocence creep off? Was it some sort of middle-of-the-night hijack, an unwanted escape? Or did it crawl away in bits and parts?

Lennon, she said, it’s time.

Her words spurred a shit-fit the likes of which she had never seen from him. He didn’t just fling himself to the floor; he made the way down a production. First he kicked his little legs until his butt slid off the couch, then he struggled both up and down, unsure whether he wanted couch or floor. The effort vexed him and he screamed even more, banging his head on the couch’s soft cushions, then on its wooden legs, then finally on the floor, where the echo against his cranium was too much for her to take. She picked him up and he bit her shoulder, hard.

That’s when she almost flung him as far across the room as possible. It would be the most violence she had ever done against him. There were the small transgressions over the years: the pinching of the soft arm, the too-tight squeeze of the shoulders, the hasty and aggressive putting-on-of the shoes when they were already late for school. There are so many minute ways to hurt these small people. You don’t want to engage in any of them, but the reality is that we almost all do.