“Please leave the table if you’re going to talk like that,” Mother said.

Katie felt the familiar twinge of fear in her stomach. She watched as Father’s face gradually turned darker, from pink to purple.

“Leave the table?” Father bellowed. “You think you can order me around like a goddamned slave?”

“Please, Richard.” There was a look of desperation in Mother’s eyes.

“ Please, Richard,” Father mocked her hatefully.

“I’ll give you please, by God, and thank you very much, too!”

Father stood on wobbly legs, knocking his drink over in the process. Whiskey spilled out and stained the tablecloth as he stumbled off toward his bedroom. The aroma filled Katie’s nostrils, sickening her. She hated whiskey. She hated everything about it.

Katie, along with the others, sat at the table in stunned silence, waiting for Mother to say something. She’d seen Father’s outbursts before-all of them had-but this one was worse, much worse and more vicious than any they’d ever experienced.

“It’s all right,” Mother said after what seemed to Katie like an hour. “He’s just not feeling well today.”

“He shouldn’t talk to you that way,” Kirk said.

“He doesn’t mean it.”

“Doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t do it.”

Katie heard heavy footsteps coming from the direction of Father’s bedroom and looked around. He was moving quickly toward them. He raised a shotgun, pointed it in Mother’s direction, and pulled the trigger. Katie thought her eardrums had burst. Mother went straight over on her back. A spray of pink mist seemed to hang in the air above the table. Katie’s joints froze. She urinated on herself.

She watched in terror as Father pumped the shotgun and swung it around toward Kirk-a second horrific explosion.

Then Kiri.

Then her…

2

As the bailiff calls criminal court into session, I look around the room at the anxious faces and feel the familiar sense of dread that hangs in the air like thick fog.