I enter the kitchen through the crackle of bacon and my parents’ anger. My mother’s at the stove, lips moving in silent rebuttal. She turns, drops two rubbery eggs onto my plate. Four forks clatter onto the Formica tabletop. “Jesus, Eleanor,” my father grimaces. She puts a plate in front of my father, two pieces of burnt toast, two jiggling, gelatinous mounds of barely cooked egg. I wait. “These are disgusting. No one could eat them,” my father snarls. “Fine, I’ll throw them out.” My mother snatches the plate. I reach for it. “I’ll eat them.” Sobbing “I’ll eat them.”
Linda Dreeben is a retired lawyer living outside Washington, DC, and focusing on how not to write like a lawyer.