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There was this one time that Dad opened a cupboard in the kitchen, and everything fell out onto the floor.
“I know why that happened and it was my fault,” Pa called out, and he asked me to get the broom.
Dad was picking up pieces of glass with his fingers.
“Sorry, sorry,” said Pa, “it’s been precariously balanced in there for a while.”
“Did you think about fixing it?” Dad asked.
“I thought about it lots of times,” said Pa. “It’s just that thinking about it didn’t translate into any sort of action. Sorry. Don’t pick that up with your hands, Alan Sebastian! You’ll cut yourself.”
The thing about opening the cupboard is that it’s never just one thing that tumbles out. It’s never just one dish that falls and cracks neatly down the centre.
It’s everything. All of the things you’d shoved into the cupboard, promising yourself you’d deal with them later. All of them, all at once.
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