Rain spat sideways while Mother tugged our hands until we were jogging.

Dad was drunk again, and he’d hit her this time. The bruises glistened like purple glass.

At a diner, Mother used the restroom.

My brother asked what I knew.

I told him, “Love isn’t supposed to be cruel.”

Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State, an editor at the online magazine Literary Orphans, and the author of I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE AND NEITHER ARE YOU, out now from Unknown Press. You can also find him at lenkuntz.blogspot.com.