Clock Dance

by Anne Tyler

“Thinking time,” their father called it. Their mother would shout at him and stamp her foot, or slap Willa in the face (such a stinging, shameful experience, being slapped in the face—so scary to the person’s eyes), or shake Elaine like a Raggedy Ann, and then she would grab her own hair in both hands so that even after she let go of it,

Yikes.