Mom used to get liquored up and stew until she imagined I’d betrayed her in some fashion, then charge at me. Scrubbed my mouth out with soap once—literally ground the bar into my teeth so I spent hours digging the stuff out—but usually it was whatever was swingable and in arm’s reach.

I remember the night she struck me on the back with an unstrung toy archery bow—good solid ’70s resin—because I didn’t side with her in an argument with my father. We were working outside to get away from her endless ranting when she snuck up and nailed me across the shoulder blades. I remember it because I was fifteen and whirled around and popped her right in the mouth and left her in the dirt, shrieking and bawling and whooping and moaning through her bloody slobbering maw.

That’s when she took to killing a family pet once or twice a year and blaming it on an in-law (we lived in the sticks, near Dad’s relatives, and he and they were real pieces of work themselves). Broke a cat’s neck with her bare hands; ran over our big dumb golden lab. If she could no longer hurt me physically, by God she would strike at me in whatever manner she could.

Left home the millisecond I could and never came back, which I’m sure she saw as just another betrayal for she never did anything wrong.