“He was bad with me too, but it was a little more random. If the phone rang and woke him up, he'd hit me, or if he had plans to go out but had to cancel for snow, he'd knock me around to burn off his anger. I was always looking for the secret code, the rules I could follow so he wouldn't freak out. That's how you keep yourself safe, you know? You pay attention to how the world works. But there was no secret code for him. It was like our actions were entirely detached from his reaction to us.”