My mother and father picked up their marriage like a coat that had slipped out of their hands and dropped to the floor. A gentle shake and it was on again. Neither one of them ever said a word about what happened that night at the farm. Everything was back to normal, except me. I had changed. I had begun a lifelong quest for perfection. In actuality, it was a lifelong tug-of-war with perfection in which I always ended up face down in the mud. I started walking the train rails like a tightrope walker –– nearly never losing my balance. I strived for perfect penmanship –– balling up pages at the slightest hint of a slipped pen. I tried to be perfect in every way. I think I felt without conscious thought that if I was perfect it would never happen again.
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