**Chap­ter Thir­ty-One Sum­ma­ry: The Rest of the Week­end Pass­es**

The week­end unfolds like a dream, a wel­comed reprieve from the chaos that usu­al­ly blan­kets life. Sat­ur­day night is spent with the girls, engrossed in their read­ing while I grap­ple with *Por­trait of an Old Crow*. This lull gives me a rare sense of nor­mal­cy, and I rev­el in the calm­ness that per­me­ates our home; after liv­ing amidst chaos, a lit­tle bore­dom feels mag­nif­i­cent.

How­ev­er, by Sun­day, opti­mism makes me reck­less. Dad returns ear­ly from a con­struc­tion job cut short by rain, and as we come togeth­er for din­ner, he pro­pos­es a game night, rem­i­nis­cent of fun times spent at our grand­par­ents’ house. Camp­bell and I share a know­ing look, unsure yet hope­ful that per­haps the storm has passed. I silent­ly wish for a nar­ra­tor to warn me when­ev­er I feel a fleet­ing sense of hap­pi­ness that it’s often fol­lowed by trou­ble.

After din­ner, Dad search­es for his wal­let, his grow­ing frus­tra­tion evi­dent as he real­izes it’s miss­ing. Mom sug­gests check­ing the truck, and while they explore out­side, Camp­bell and I comb the house. Despite our search­es, the wal­let eludes us, mak­ing Dad’s return more irri­ta­ble. Just as ten­sions rise, Juniper finds the wal­let near the front door, claim­ing it must have fall­en out of Dad’s jack­et. Relief wash­es over us, but dessert remains for­got­ten as we dive into *Apples to Apples*.

How­ev­er, the ini­tial sense of joy dis­si­pates. It feels as though we are pre­car­i­ous­ly tra­vers­ing a rick­ety bridge, each step a reminder that we must keep mov­ing for­ward with­out look­ing back. When Dad paus­es dur­ing the game, his apol­o­gy for los­ing the cash in his wal­let plunges the atmos­phere back into seri­ous­ness. The cus­tom­ary apolo­gies have become part of our fam­i­ly dynam­ic, though his abil­i­ty to apol­o­gize so rapid­ly is a flick­er of hope.

Mom tries to steer us back toward joy, but the unspo­ken ten­sion con­tin­ues to sim­mer. The unad­dressed fears and struggles—especially those of my father, marked by scars from his upbringing—loom over us, shap­ing the fears we inher­it. In our home, inher­it­ed anger takes tan­gi­ble form, and the desire to break the cycle con­trasts sharply with our real­i­ty. While try­ing to enjoy game night, it’s evi­dent that the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al scars still dic­tate our rela­tion­ships, hold­ing us cap­tive in a lega­cy of pain.