baltimoreblackwoman

One night in late-summer, long after we’d finished supper on our screened porch with my visiting dad and stepmother, I heard Dad say with blunt force, “Want to know why your mom and I got divorced?”

I was 31. They’d been divorced 23 years. “No, actually, I don’t,” I said. Crickets sawed their songs like a chorus in the near woods as I stacked our dirty plates and checked a swelling urge to tell him that I knew, of course I knew, had always known, about her and about him.

Newsflash: the kids always know.

On my darkened porch, Dad took an extra-long drag off his Marlboro, and the familiar glow of ashes lit his frustrated face. “On that note,” I said, pushing back my patio chair, “I’m going to bed. Sleep well. See y’all in the morning.”

If you grew up in a broken home, you likely recognize this…