William Edwards Leaves His Screaming Son on a Friday Afternoon in Hartford
She slid the folded paper into her apron pocket and stood up.
“You are projecting your own early neglect onto a woman who is trying to teach our son some basic discipline,” she said.
I looked down at my plate, the pot roast growing cold in the gray gravy.
A small doubt, no larger than a pinprick, began to settle in my chest. I wondered if my own training in child development was being warped by the memories of the rooms I had lived in before I was ten.
“He is only five,” I said softly.
“And he is already running the house because you fold every time he whimpers,” she said from the kitchen doorway.
She left the room, the heels of her shoes clicking against the hardwood floor until she reached the stairs.
I stood up and walked into the dark hallway, my hand reaching for the telephone on the small table near the coat rack.
I dialed Sue’s number, listening to the long, empty rings on the other end of the line.
Four rings. Five rings. Six.
