“You’re drunk.”
My father wanted to know what the inspector had been like.
“You listen to me,” my mother said. “You’re not only drunk, you’re sick in the head. Sick!” She no longer whispered, and her movements speeded up as she wiped the table. She wrung out the hand towel two or three times before she wiped her hands on her nightgown and marched into the pantry where we kept a bedpan when it was too cold to go to the outhouse. My father flew after her. She locked him out. “I’m going to write that donkey c**k a letter. I’m going to write it now,” my father’s breath came in short gasps. “I’m entitled to know what’s going on! I have to think of the children!”
My mother sobbed behind the door. My father jumped back to the table and scribbled away furiously. Then he jumped back to the pantr
