this day

My mother stood with hands akimbo, hips cocked, and tears streaming down her face.  At once, she looked able to spring forward in attack or to fall down in anguish.  Black streaks of mascara ran down her red face, her curly, blond hair a wild mess about her.
         My father stood on the other side of the normally quiet room, fuming and pacing, waving his arms into the air.  It was a wonder that either could tell that the other was even speaking; both were yelling so loud that my own ears hurt.
         "You ungrateful fucking cunt!" my father would scream.
         "Jackass!  You won't touch my children!"  She'd bellow back.
         My father had yelled at me to leave the house and to get into the car, but I was still there, shocked and stock-still.  When the yelling began I ran to my mother, and scared, put my head under her thick white sweatshirt.  She put an arm around me.  Her stomach, warm and soft convulsed as she screamed.
         There was more yelling, and then all was a blur.  I was torn from out of the sweatshirt by my father.  With his other arm he pushed her out the door.  There was nothing that she could have done; she was weak, but he was strong from construction labor.
         Out the door, she stumbled. He pushed her again.  She flew against the iron fence on the porch.  It gave way and her body tumbled down.  My father grabbed me by the back of the shirt and hauled me with him to the car in the driveway.  As we passed her, she groaned and raised her head.  A bloody gash from the sidewalk marred her face.
         I was shoved in the GeoTracker, where my brother sat with eyes streaming.  We both screamed for my mother as the tires screeched and the little car tore out of the driveway.  She didn't move, didn't raise her head again.
         Nobody spoke as we made our way home.
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