You think about child abuse and you think of a father viciously

Host: The room was dim, lit by a single lamp whose yellow light quivered like a memory about to fade. Rain beat against the window, soft but relentless. The air smelled faintly of old wood, tea, and something unspoken. Outside, the street was quiet — no laughter, no traffic, just the rhythmic sound of water against glass.

Jack and Jeeny sat opposite each other in a small apartment near the edge of the city, where the buildings leaned like tired giants. On the table between them lay a photo, slightly torn, the image of a woman holding a child who wasn’t smiling.

Jeeny’s fingers hovered above it, trembling slightly.

Jack: “Brodsky wrote about cities being ‘king size,’ but there’s nothing large about what we’re talking about now. Just one room. One woman. One child.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Lynn Johnston said — ‘You think about child abuse and you think of a father viciously attacking a daughter or a son, but in my family it was my mother. My mother was a very brutal disciplinarian.’”

Host: The words hung in the air, heavy as smoke, curling into the silence.

Jack: “People don’t like hearing that. They want villains to look a certain way — rough, masculine, obvious. Not someone who sings lullabies.”

Jeeny: “That’s what makes it so hard to name. Because when the hand that hits you is the same one that used to feed you, you start to question what love even means.”

Host: The lamp flickered. Jack’s face looked carved in shadow, his jaw tense, his eyes unreadable.

Jack: “Discipline, they call it. Especially in that generation. They believed pain was a kind of moral education. I’ve seen it — the ruler, the belt, the silence that followed. And everyone just called it normal.”

Jeeny: “But it wasn’t. It never is. That’s the lie families tell — that cruelty can be love, if it’s for your own good.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, as if the sky was listening.

Jack: “Maybe she thought she was doing the right thing. That’s the worst part — when the abuser believes in their own righteousness. You can’t fight that. You grow up thinking you’re the one who’s wrong.”

Jeeny: “That’s what emotional abuse does. It doesn’t just hurt your body — it reshapes your soul. It makes you doubt every feeling, every instinct.”

Jack: “You sound like you know.”

Jeeny: (after a pause) “My mother wasn’t violent, no. But she could freeze you with silence. Days of it. That kind of cold doesn’t leave bruises, but it leaves something worse.”

Host: Her eyes were far away, like she was watching a scene through a frozen window.

Jack: “So maybe that’s the real brutality. Not just the blows, but the silence that follows — when the child learns not to speak, not to expect warmth.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And later they grow up believing they have to earn gentleness. That it’s a prize, not a right.”

Host: Jack’s hand moved toward the photo on the table, his fingers brushing the edge of it.

Jack: “People say time heals. But I think it just hides the scars. You see those adults — always apologizing for existing, always trying to please. You can tell who they are.”

Jeeny: “The ones who flinch at kindness.”

Host: The wind outside shifted, carrying with it the faint echo of a siren, the sound of a distant city still awake.

Jack: “I don’t think she was evil. Maybe broken. Maybe repeating what she was taught. Every parent’s a reflection of the pain they survived.”

Jeeny: “That doesn’t excuse it.”

Jack: “No. But it explains it. And understanding doesn’t erase the hurt — it just gives it shape.”

Jeeny: “That’s dangerous, Jack. Sometimes understanding becomes another form of forgiveness. And forgiveness too early is just denial in disguise.”

Host: Her voice trembled, not from fear, but from memory. Jack looked at her — really looked — and for a moment his eyes softened, like he understood too much.

Jack: “You ever think she just didn’t know how to love?”

Jeeny: “No. I think she chose not to learn.”

Host: Silence again. The kind that fills a room like water, rising slowly until there’s nowhere to breathe.

Jeeny: “When a mother hurts you, the world shifts. Because she’s supposed to be the one who protects you from everyone else. And when she’s the one you need protection from — you stop believing in safety at all.”

Jack: “And yet, people still call it home.”

Jeeny: “Because it’s all they’ve ever known.”

Host: Jack stood and walked toward the window. The city lights below blurred in the rain, streaks of gold and blue. He spoke without turning back.

Jack: “It’s strange, isn’t it? How we spend our whole lives trying to escape the people who built us — and still end up carrying them inside.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why forgiveness feels so heavy. Because we’re not just forgiving them — we’re forgiving the part of ourselves that still loves them.”

Host: The lamp flickered again, casting a long shadow across the floor. The rain softened to a whisper.

Jack: “You think people can ever really heal from that?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not in the way we imagine. Healing isn’t forgetting. It’s learning how to stop expecting an apology that’ll never come.”

Host: Her voice was gentle now, almost like she was talking to herself. Jack nodded slowly, his reflection faint in the window, merging with the lights beyond.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why we write, or paint, or talk. Because part of us is still trying to turn punishment into poetry.”

Jeeny: “Or to find meaning in the pain — so it doesn’t feel like it happened for nothing.”

Host: She reached across the table and turned the photo over, face down. The room felt lighter, as if some invisible weight had shifted.

Jack: “You know… there’s something about hearing someone say it aloud. That it was the mother, not the father. It breaks the pattern, forces people to see what they’d rather not.”

Jeeny: “Yes. It makes the invisible visible. It reminds us that cruelty doesn’t have a gender. That love can wear a thousand faces — and not all of them are kind.”

Host: Outside, the rain finally stopped. A thin beam of light from a passing car crossed the room, glinting off the edge of the photo before disappearing.

Jeeny: “Maybe what Johnston was really saying wasn’t just about her mother. Maybe it was about how easily society lets women’s cruelty go unnamed. We expect mothers to be saints — so when they’re not, we pretend it’s discipline.”

Jack: “And that’s why so many never speak. Because it doesn’t fit the story we want to tell about family.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The myth of the loving mother is so powerful, it silences the truth. But silence, too, is a form of inheritance.”

Host: The clock ticked — once, twice — like a pulse.

Jack: “Then maybe the real rebellion is to speak. To say it out loud, as Johnston did — that even a mother can be the monster.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because naming it is the first act of healing. You take back the story.”

Host: The rain had stopped entirely now. The city outside glowed under the streetlights, clean, raw, alive again.

Jack: “You know what’s strange?”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “Even after everything, people still crave their mothers’ approval. Even the ones who hurt them.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Because we all begin with her heartbeat. And no matter what she does, some part of us still listens for it.”

Host: The room fell into quiet. The photo lay face down, but its presence lingered like a secret that had finally been named.

Outside, the first light of dawn began to creep through the window, pale and uncertain. Jack and Jeeny sat in that fragile moment between darkness and day, where truth and forgiveness almost looked the same.

The camera pulled back slowly — past the window, past the rain-soaked streets, up to the sky where the clouds began to part.

Host: And in that small apartment, the silence was no longer fear — it was peace. The kind that only comes when a wound, long hidden, is finally spoken into the light.