'No, not the hot!' a little girl's voice screeches.

Out of nowhere, his hand is whacked with a sterling silver utensil. It stings badly, almost feeling like a burn as the initial smarting wears off.

"Wrong fork. We're eating salad, Edward. Use the outside one," his mother admonishes.

They return to their meal in silence.

'My mother was a mean, nasty person,' a gruff, gravelly man's voice answers.

The sheets are soaked as Edward tosses and turns, getting stuck among them, cast adrift in a sea of nervous sweat. Alone.

"Get away from me," his mother growls, swatting at him and pushing him away from her when he goes in for a hug. She had just been being nice to him. They had all just been having a good time. His mom. His dad. Him. He looks up at them in confusion.

"Your mother's not in the mood for affection right now, son."

She's never in the mood, even when she appears to be. His chin trembles.

'Do you have a dad?' - the gruff voice asks.

'No, but I want one!' - the little girl's voice answers enthusiastically, laced with hope.

Little boys learn the most important lessons from their fathers.

His father pulls him out into the hallway just outside the family room before his mother can see his tears fall - it's for his own good.

"Never cry in front of your mother," he says sternly once they are out of range, shaking him. "You need to toughen up son, be a man. Don't show weakness . . . especially not in front of her."

His father looks back nervously at the family room as Edward just cries and cries.

His father gets down on his knees - to his son's level - and hugs him tight, stroking his hair to soothe him, giving him the affection his mother never would. "It's okay, son. You're just a boy . . . just a little boy."

When little Edward's crying has lessened, his father pulls away to say, "Don't try to force her affection, okay? If she wants to hug you, she will. No matter how much you may want it, you have to give her a wide berth. And remember to stay docile, amicable when she's agitated, like I told you. Okay?"

"Okay," Edward nods, his tears mostly over. He tries to wipe away some of them from his cheek with the back of his hand, but he just picks up a large globule of snot instead.

"Here, son," his father says, having quickly found a wet wipe in the bathroom in the hallway that was left over from his baby days, which weren't that long ago. As he begins to clean Edward's face with it, he says, "Remember not to cry, okay? She'll be placated if you just remain docile, no matter what she does. She'll be less likely to attack."

In that moment, Edward realizes that he had really messed up when he stood up to her over the record player. About the unfairness of it all. But why did she get to live by different rules?

"And DON'T cry," his father emphasizes. "It will draw her to you like a predator to its prey. Do you understand?"

"I'll try."

"Good boy," his father sighs, looking almost dejected. "In this house, you'll have to get tough and grow up faster than you should have to. And I'm sorry about that son, but that's just the way it is."

"But what if I don't want to remain docile?"

That is said into the waking world and it garners nothing more than a "Hmm?" from the other side of the bed and and drunken arm thrown about him.

"Go back to sleep," he whispers, and kisses her forehead.

As he rinses the night sweat off of himself, Edward remembers his father's flimsy excuse for his mother's lack of affection.

"She's damaged, son. Someone broke her."

"Yeah, well, I'm damaged, too. Because of her he had always wanted to say back to this memory of his father.

No one is ever going to love me. Lee, Leslie, The Doc - they're all going to leave me eventually. There's no way I can sustain this.

His tears join his sweat as it's walked away in the shower.

"Hey," he hears coming softly from the other side of the shower curtain. Surprise, surprise - it is her - the drunken one.

Why has she been drinking like this?

Why has Lee turned into a psychotic housewife and "mother" all of a sudden?

FUCK. Why does The Doc drink so much!?

She parts the curtain softly, tentatively, and peeks in. She looks like a wreck and smells worse. Mascara is smeared on her face all the way to her temples, not just under her eyes and her lipstick is smeared, too. Looking at her, Edward suddenly realizes that he's already lost this one.

Is being with him really that bad?

"Go back to bed, Doc," he says coldly.

"No, you need me."

"I'm fine."

"I don't think so."

Her head disappears and then he hears her clothes drop to the floor - she had forgotten to change out of them for the night.

She parts the curtain once more and steps into the shower to join him. The alcohol makes her a ghost of herself. He only has her for a few minutes after they switch each night before he loses her to new favorite pastime.

He sighs and takes her into his arms because it's what she wants. And he's not going to deny her his affection. He's not his mother.

She clings to him and lets herself cry until the water runs cold.

But why?

He's so confused.