1979

There was blood on the chicken. Us standing there in the Six Flags parking lot eating a home-cooked lunch. Just eat it, mom snapped, it’s fine. My stomach lurched. My six-year-old heart grated against my chest. I nibbled delicately around the tiny rivulet of blood trailing down the bone, the pinkening flesh. A thick grey sky hanging above. A sea of cars blurring into the horizon. An island of uncertain trust. Her verbal whip checking any protest. My father and stepbrother politely not intervening.