He looks at me with a cold dead stare and shuts the door in my face, and I wish that this was a story, but it's not, and there's no ending or climax just the continuous cycle of up and down. So familiar I can predict when and what will happen. Is he drunk? Yes, but is he drunk enough? No. Not enough. He is angry drunk and so hide upstairs and turn up the music loud because all the intervening years have disappeared and this is the new kitchen table to huddle under, but this time there is no one else to sit with you. And I breath shallow and don't speak, and listen to his footsteps as he moves about the house. And when he finally sleeps, creep downstairs to survey the damage, and wait until the new day to see what he will be like.

Tonight, I am nothing, nothing to him.