Can You Feel This?

by Julie Orringer

You’d never worn your trauma like a badge. It was something you carried alone.

he was, it seemed to you, honorable, a person who didn’t cheat and didn’t lie, came home when he said he would, took care of you when you were sick,

Where was your father? Why were you alone?

You don’t say you hate her for all she’s done and hasn’t done. But for a moment you think it. And that’s when she goes.