While Washing Dishes One Night

One evening after supper, my thirteen-year-old sister and I stood elbow to elbow washing dishes while watching the local news. One of the stories on the television highlighted a young boy trying to legally divorce his parents. For whatever reason, he no longer wanted to be their son.

Pausing from wiping off a dish, my sister got a puzzled look on her face. “Lori, I have a question.”

“What’s that?” I replied.

“You know this story—the one about the boy wanting to divorce his parents?”

“Yes. What about it?” I laid the dish in my hand on the counter.

“Well, how does he go about doing that?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I turned off the running water and waited for her to respond.

“Well, what’s going to happen if his mom and dad don’t want to leave each other?”

I shook my head.

Conversation taken from a journal entry written December 6, 1993