As I waited for the bail magistrate in the police station’s lobby, I read the walls.
A plaque honoring a fallen officer read, “Dear Lord, be good to me the sea is so wide and my boat is so small.” (An Irish fisherman’s prayer.)
I looked at the mug shots of the level three sex offenders. They included my Uncle Darnell. I shook my head in embarrassment.
My mother sat on the bench with her head hung low, quiet until she said, “I had a flashback of him yelling, ‘Bitch! Bitch!’ before he slapped me.” He was reincarnated in her.
“This time I was stronger,” she said. “I pressed my knee into your sister’s chest, choking her as I screamed, ‘This is what your father use to do to me.’”
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