I returned home unannounced after four years in Canada and found my wife with a shaved head, terribly thin and struggling alone in the backyard

It was the furious cry of someone who realized he had lost control.

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“What about me?” he demanded. “I am your mother!”

I thought of Clara kneeling in the yard.

His head shaved.

Their broken sandals.

That bucket of dirty water.

Then I looked at Vivian.

“And she was my wife.”

For once, my mother had nothing to say.

Clara spent months in treatment.

It was not easy.

There were hard days.

Days when I could barely eat.

Anatomy

Days when I was angry with me for not realizing it before.

And I had every right to be.

I stopped asking him to forgive me quickly.

Instead, I stayed.

At every date.

At home.

Next to him when he was afraid.

One afternoon, months later, I walked into the kitchen and found her standing by the window.