Violence was very much a part of my mother's upbringing - a

Host: The rain had turned the city into a mirror—each streetlight fractured into trembling gold rivers that ran down the asphalt. The clock on the wall struck midnight, its sound lost beneath the hum of neon and the steady drip of leakage from the old café ceiling.

Jack sat in the corner booth, a half-empty glass of whiskey in front of him. His grey eyes reflected the dim glow like cold steel under water. Across from him, Jeeny sat in her wool coat, her hands clasped, her face calm but alert, as though she were guarding a memory too fragile to name.

The world outside seemed to breathe slowly—a night heavy with the scent of wet concrete, loneliness, and regret.

Jeeny: “Rodney Crowell once said something that’s been echoing in my head all week. ‘Violence was very much a part of my mother's upbringing - a little less so with my father's, but my father was an angry man when he was young. He was angry and frustrated and had no idea how to channel anger.’”

Jack: leans back, voice rough “That sounds about right. Most men I knew growing up didn’t know what to do with anger. We were told to fight, to drink, or to shut up. Nobody ever said, ‘You can feel it without destroying something.’”

Host: The rain pounded harder against the window, as if the sky itself was furious. Jeeny’s eyes glimmered under the café light, deep pools of empathy and quiet grief.

Jeeny: “But don’t you think anger can be something else? A message, maybe. A cry from the soul asking to be understood, not just silenced or unleashed.”

Jack: “Anger’s not poetic, Jeeny. It’s a fire. You can’t reason with fire—you either burn or you put it out. My father used to come home drunk. I could tell by the way the door slammed. Every night felt like a coin toss—would he curse, hit, or just stare in silence? That’s not a message. That’s chaos.”

Jeeny: “But chaos has roots, Jack. Even your father’s anger had a beginning. Maybe it wasn’t really about you or your mother. Maybe it was about the world that failed to teach him how to feel without breaking.”

Host: The light from the street flickered across Jack’s face, carving his features in shadow and light. He looked older in that moment—tired, but not defeated.

Jack: “You think understanding it makes it better? That’s like explaining the flood to the ones drowning. He could’ve learned. He just didn’t want to.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe he didn’t know how. Think about it—generations of men taught to hide everything, to swallow pain, to pretend strength. It builds pressure. Then it erupts. Not because they’re evil, but because no one ever handed them another language for pain.”

Host: The music from the jukebox faded into a soft blues tune, the kind that carries both sorrow and forgiveness in every note. Jack stared at the table, tracing a circle in a ring of spilled whiskey.

Jack: “You’re saying we inherit violence like we inherit eye color.”

Jeeny: “In a way, yes. Not the violence itself, but the silence that breeds it. It’s passed down when fathers never talk about their wounds, when mothers keep forgiving without healing. That silence becomes the family heirloom.”

Host: A flash of lightning threw their reflections against the window, ghostly and distorted—two figures bound by the storm outside and the storm between them.

Jack: “My old man didn’t believe in talking. He’d say, ‘Words are for the weak.’ So I learned to shut up too. Maybe that’s why I ended up angry at everything and nothing. You ever feel that? Rage without a face?”

Jeeny: nodding slowly “Yes. I’ve seen it. In the people I work with. Children growing up in fear—they become adults who confuse control with strength. They wear anger like armor, because it’s the only thing that ever made them feel safe.”

Jack: “Safe? There’s nothing safe about anger. It’s a poison.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Poison kills from the outside. Anger… it’s more like blood—it belongs inside us. It keeps us alive, if it’s flowing the right way. It’s only when it stagnates that it turns toxic.”

Host: Jack’s hand trembled slightly. He took a slow breath, staring at the smoke curling from the candle between them. The flame danced, fragile, flickering like something trying not to die.

Jack: “You talk like anger can be holy.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes it is. Think of Martin Luther King. His anger didn’t destroy—it built a movement. Or Gandhi, who turned rage into resistance. They didn’t deny their fury—they refined it. That’s the difference between being burned by fire and using it to forge steel.”

Jack: “And what about the rest of us? The ones who don’t have marches or movements—just broken homes and quiet nightmares?”

Jeeny: “Then we learn to make peace with our ghosts. Even if we never win, we stop letting them lead. You once told me you fight to control everything—your work, your emotions, your silence. Maybe it’s time you stopped fighting and started listening.”

Host: The rain softened, and the air grew heavy with that sweet scent that comes after a storm—the smell of forgiveness. Jack’s eyes, usually so sharp, now seemed uncertain, like a boy remembering a wound he never let heal.

Jack: “You think forgiveness works on the dead?”

Jeeny: “Always. Because forgiveness isn’t for them—it’s for the living. It’s for you.”

Host: The clock ticked, the sound impossibly loud in the quiet. Jack’s fingers pressed against his temple, his jaw tight, as if holding back a flood that had waited years to rise.

Jack: “He died before I could ask him why. Why he was so angry. Why he couldn’t just… be a father.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he wanted to be. Maybe he just didn’t know how. You’re not him, Jack. You don’t have to carry that same fire. You can build something different.”

Host: A tear slipped from Jeeny’s eye, quick and unashamed. Jack noticed it and looked away, but his voice softened.

Jack: “You make it sound easy.”

Jeeny: “It’s not. But neither is living angry forever. The question isn’t whether we inherit anger—it’s whether we let it become our language, or just a dialect we choose to unlearn.”

Host: The lights dimmed slightly as the storm outside broke into a quiet drizzle. The café felt like a world in suspension—two souls caught between past and peace.

Jack: “You know, sometimes I think about him standing in front of the mirror, fists clenched, eyes red, and I realize—he wasn’t angry at us. He was angry at himself. For being small in a world that demanded he be big.”

Jeeny: “That’s what most anger is—a rebellion against helplessness.”

Jack: “And what’s the cure?”

Jeeny: “Not control. Not denial. Just acknowledgment. To say, ‘Yes, I’m angry, but I won’t let it make me cruel.’”

Host: Jack’s breathing slowed. His shoulders eased, and for the first time, he seemed lighter—like something inside had finally cracked open and let the air in.

Jack: “You think people like me can change?”

Jeeny: “I think you already are.”

Host: The candle flame steadied, no longer trembling. Outside, the clouds began to part, revealing a sliver of moonlight stretching across the wet pavement. The night was still bruised, but the bleeding had stopped.

Jack raised his glass slightly, voice low and sincere.

Jack: “To fathers who didn’t know how to love. And to sons who are still trying.”

Jeeny: “And to daughters who keep teaching them it’s not too late.”

Host: The clink of their glasses echoed through the empty café—soft, human, redemptive. Beyond the window, the city exhaled, and the rain finally came to rest.

In that small, flickering moment, two broken inheritances met—not to fight, but to forgive. And somewhere, between the silence and the sound, anger finally learned how to breathe.