Ask Him Why

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

“No, I told Joe to go home and come clean with ’em. Your parents are the heart o’ the problem, you know, and how could he solve the problem if he couldn’t even talk to them? Except in another way they’re not the problem, at least not the start of it and not on purpose, because they likely grew up the same. They didn’t get what they needed from their folks, so now they can’t give you kids what they don’t have. They’re the victims and the perpetrators, both, and the cycle just keeps going around and around. And I don’t know what to do to stop it any more than anybody else does, except I just know bacon and eggs and potatoes. It doesn’t fix everything, but it makes a dent, and anyway, like I said before, I can only do what I can do and no more.” I wandered

Callahan men

He says the part that’s driving us crazy is trying to fix a future that isn’t even here yet.

future