before one of the Adults, those whose personal pronoun would always be capitalized, those who loomed, even when gently disposed; those whose moods, size, and auditory volume made them as comforting as they were terrifying, would sit him down.  Sit him down To Talk.  They would be concerned, brows furrowed, tones gentle (depending, of course, on where the familial Chastisement roulette wheel’s silver ball clacked to a stop), looking at him with some combination of concern, fear, probably anger.  Because in a moment of anger, propelling honesty in a manner that only flashes of rage can, he blurted out the one threat that carried any weight “The Nuclear Option,” as his therapist would call it decades later.

It was as if he had invoked the one actual ghost that haunted every room of every house they lived in, a ghost that bore enough of a resemblance to that of his father that it instilled the same fear as had his presence.  It was a threat that was worse than the more common ones that children made: “I’m running away from home!” or even “I’m going to kill myself!”  (the latter, of course, lower on the spectum of “worse” than when issued forth from the mouth of a parent who had actually tried it). It was worse, not merely because it was entirely possible, not because it was entirely easybut because it portended a deep fissure in what he knew as his family; an old wound, jagged and badly healed, of which no  one seemed to speak.