Sins of the father

On the cost of inheritance

When I was in middle school, my father robbed our neighbors. I had just gotten him back after a two-year stint in Westville penitentiary. He was serving time for a car accident that left my mother handicapped. They were intoxicated after an evening of drinking at a Holiday Inn, they only meant to drive across the street to a cheaper motel to stay for the evening, but he inadvertently got on the highway instead. A small mistake.

He fell asleep and hit a concrete barrier, breaking my mother’s left leg in three places and rendering her incapable of running or climbing more than a few stairs at a time without her having to stop, breathe, and take a break. My father was always changing our lives in big terrible ways.

I loved him desperately. I’d relish it when people told me how much we looked alike. I was impressed that all the police officers in town knew and greeted him by name. I took a strange sense of pride in knowing that he was able to charm those that came face-to-face with his crimes

My father, high school