|
Just after supper on the Friday three days before
Valentine’s Day, 1972, Mr. John R. Larsen and
Mrs. John R. (Beverly) Larsen engaged in a brief
quarrel in Mrs. Larsen’s kitchen. The quarrel was
abruptly concluded when Mr. Larsen, with his
open palm, but with the full force of his stocky body
behind the blow, struck his wife across the face.
Mr. Larsen left the kitchen, entered the family room
of the split-level, ranch-style home, and dropped into
his favorite chair. He quietly directed the three
Larsen children, ages seven, six, and five, to turn off
the television and (although it was not even 7 p.m.) to get
ready for bed. The children quickly and quietly obeyed.
Mrs. Larsen, nearly blinded by her tears and fury, stood
with both arms braced on the kitchen sink and took great
silent gulps of air. The humming refrigerator motor
shuddered to a stop. As a laughing group of teenagers
walked past the Larsen home, a neighbor’s dog
yapped and snarled and caused a dull metallic clink
as she repeatedly lunged at the passersby and pulled
taut her chain.
Then, silence.
Mrs. Larsen’s face had been numb for a moment but
soon began to sting. The pink handprint on her cheek
began to swell and darken.
Mrs. Larsen’s dim reflection in the dark window above
the sink was the only witness as the woman reached into
the dishrack, her knuckles whitening as her slender fingers
closed around the wooden handle of a butcher knife.
“Goodnight, Mommy. Daddy says we gotta go to bed.”
The five-year-old stood at the entrance to the kitchen.
The mother still held the knife. She did not turn to the child.
In a soft and clear voice she said, “Well, brush your teeth and
go potty and get into bed then. I’ll be there in a minute to
tuck you in and hear your prayers.”
By Monday the bruise on Beverly Larsen’s cheek was much
smaller. All that remained was a green-black blotch beneath
her left eye, a stain in the shape of a heart.
Times change.
People change.
Times change people and
sometimes people change the times.
Countless tiny events (and a few momentous ones) combine
their forces to tug and push and mold and shape our lives.
In the shell of John and Beverly’s existence there have
gradually appeared new dents and cracks and wrinkles—
some of them ugly, others quite beautiful indeed.
Times change.
But echoes of our past
never fade to silence.
On another February evening, two of the Larsen children,
teenagers now, stood in the hallway of their home and
eavesdropped as their parents bitterly but quietly
exchanged harsh accusations in the kitchen. John Larsen
sat at the kitchen table, his body tense, his index finger
emphatically stabbing the tabletop each time he spoke.
Beverly, arms folded against her chest, sat across from him.
Short, sharp sentences flew back and forth, but still no one
shouted. Although John hadn’t hit his wife in years,
suddenly he cursed and stood and raised a fist. Instantly,
Beverly stood, too. Now, with her arms hanging loosely
at her sides, she faced her husband.
John’s fist, frozen in mid-swing, looked ridiculous.
“Put. It in. Your pocket, Jack,” the woman slowly said.
“I don’t need that kind of shit. You want to hit something,
you can hit that wall there. Or ...” Her eyes narrowed, her
lips smiled, her words glistened like icicles: “Or you
can fucking hit the road.”
“Mom said ‘fuck’!” whispered
the younger child in amazement.
“Shhhh!” hissed her sister.
♦
|
