early memories

From the earliest he can remember, his mother was angry. At him. At them. At their father. He remembered how she drove home late from any number of places and told him – and his sister – to talk to her so she would, so she could remain awake. He remembered the spankings, which, today, would be unabashedly and non-specifically termed beatings. And they were. He remembered her threats to leave, her leaving, then returning. He remembered her threats to “burn this place down.” He remembered hearing, later, of her flip mentions of suicide and the story another sister told of driving home four hours in the spitting rain and overwhelming darkness because she’d promised to make good on the threat. He remembers this and knows this and still tries to make sense, not of that, for it might not be possible or even worthwhile, but to somehow make sense of how it changed him and them, for they thought, then, and some of them still do, that all this was nothing so unusual. She had some of them brainwashed, you need to know, that it was just God’s will, all of it, and her – and their – suffering would be rewarded, later, but certainly not here. So, she took them to Mass sometimes twice every Sunday and always to the Stations of the Cross during Lent, and slept with a rosary wound in her hands, beads wrapped tight around her fingers. And when they buried her, some of them, not him, made certain that she still held a rosary. Him? He had other things to consider. Mostly answers. Some, still questions. He hasn't visited her grave. He won't.