Karen Burlington cried to herself in bed Friday night, two weeks since Henry had left, saying he couldn't take the bickering any longer. He took his '70s record collection of KISS, Chicago, the Bachman Trio, Captain and Tennille and the 10-year old Plymouth minivan and left her with the Pontiac Sunbird, Lionel trains, his dead mother's musty furniture, ten months on a $900 monthly lease, and three children to raise. Her horizontal tears persisted until the sun came up and, sleepless, she walked zombielike to the kitchen, put the tea kettle on the stove.
As it whistled little Arthur, at 6 her youngest, came into the room. He'd been watching Bugs Bunny and wanted his Cheerios. He reached up for the box -- Karen screamed a little scream -- but grabbed the tea kettle instead. He couldn't handle the weight of it; too heavy for the little boy. And the handle, too hot to hold. Started to teeter over --
"Sweetheart, let me handle that!" She grabbed it from him in the nick of time, put it on top of their small pantry cabinet from Ikea. Yeah, it wobbled if anyone touched it, but Arthur'd zero in on his Cheerios and would forget it was 6 feet off the ground. She looked at her youngest -- the most sensitive of the three boys. Harry didn't miss his dad. He had his basketball hoop and all the neighborhood boys to occupy his time. Jason didn't miss his dad. He had his books and his retreat into the fantasy world of Harry Potter. But Arthur ... Arthur'd never forget being abandoned by his father.
The house, so quiet, so still. Karen could stand anything but the silence, no one talking, no one making a noise. And yet she didn't hear the kitchen door open, didn't know until she heard, "Karen, I've --"
She screamed, this time for real, the bearded man almost unrecognizable in his sunglasses and baseball cap, wife beater and jeans. Before she recognized him, she flinched, slipped on the wet tiled floor, fell backwards into the Ikea pantry cabinet. The tea kettle wobbled, spilled over, and fell with full force -- on the man's head, spilling boiling water down his back, down his front, knocking him unconscious. He fell, hit the side of his head on the sharp corner of the '50s diner table, split it open, then landed a second time on the floor six feet from Karen. Popeyed, Karen took in the scene, little Arthur sobbed, spilling his Cheerios as he reached down to his daddy, already growing cold, already receding further into the distance.
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