I found his obituary fifty years after I left our mill town for college. He stayed, became a truck driver, died at fifty-seven, heavyset, single. For years he made my childhood hell, walking onto the bus, towering over me, slapping me, taunting me with ethnic slurs; cruelties scarred deep in memory. "Serious mental health issues," his sister wrote on Facebook. "A kind and gentle soul," commented one neighbor. At first, his death felt like justice, but outliving him is no atonement for a childhood wounded and joys deadened. A hard persistent rage lingers, trapped beneath the scars he left me.
Marc Audet lives and writes in Connecticut, is self-employed as a web application developer, and has traveled and lived in Canada, England, and Ireland.