...of offence

Miriam, whom Joey Skizzen thought of as his mother, Nita, began to speak about the family’s past, but only after she decided that her husband was safely in his grave. His frowns could silence her in midsentence; even his smiles were curved in condescension, though at this time in his absence, her beloved husband’s virtues, once admitted to be many, were written in lemon juice. He had a glare to bubble paint, she said. Her recollection of that look caused hesitations still. She would appear alarmed, wave as if she saw something gnatting her face, and stutter to a stop. Joey was helped to remember how, at suppertime, for only then was the family gathered as a group, the spoon would become still in his father’s soup, his father’s head would rise to face the direction of the offending remark, his normally placid look would stiffen, and fires light in his eyes. His stare seemed unwilling to cease, although it probably was never held beyond the lifetime of a minute. But a minute… a minute is so long. Certainly it continued until his daughter’s or his wife’s uneasy expression sank into the bottom of her bowl, and the guilty head was bowed in an attitude of apology and submission.

[Middle C, Gass, W. H.]