Perspective

He came home every night, the liquid on his tongue, the haze in his eyes, the alcohol for sweat. He came home every night, shirt untucked, open, unaware of his surroundings. Staggering, using anything and everything around him for support. His wife had had poles installed, heavy furniture placed around the entrance, and the hallway to the living room where his favorite maroon couch sat. 

He came home every night murmuring under his breath, reeking of alcohol, rubbing his hands over his stubble as if it were itchy. His face red, his eyes watery, his movements aimless.

He came home every night unaware of his surroundings. Drunk beyond comprehension.

Sometimes he would murmur the names of women. Every time it would be a different woman.

During the day, he was a completely different person. To the world, it was the perfect family. A successful husband, a happy wife, a beautiful son. He was kind, he never abused either of them. They lived in a beautiful, white house, with an evergreen lawn, a tree in the center of it, a golden retriever. They were the kind of family shown in advertisements. The perfect American family. Their house was the kind that was shown in architecture magazines, the embodiment of fashionable, discreet style.

Yet, he would never come home straight from the office. His wife used to sit on the sofa adjacent to the couch, biting her nails, they were chewed to the skin. The son would sit in his room in his shorts, comics open on his knees, clothes strewn around, headphones on his ears blasting loud music to keep away his thoughts, staring at the pages.

The dog would whimper and cower in the lawn.

Yet the husband never abused them.

To the world, they were the perfect family. The husband was successful, they were rich, the wife was beautiful and young, the child had perfect grades.

At home, when it was just the four of them, the silence was deafening. They had nothing to talk about. It was as if they were strangers at an advertisement shoot, playing the part of a family, in between takes.

He would come home every night, stumbling through the front door, careful observers would see scratches around the keyhole where he tried to stick the key in, and his hands would miss. They would observe a chipped table leg, a lack of glass objects in the hallway, no mirrors - he had smashed one in a drunken stupor once, the family had never spoken about that, the wife had poured alcohol on his hands, bandanged them, cleaned it up, but all in silence. No one mentioned that. Careful observers would notice the shadows on the plush carpet, not of footsteps, one after the other, but of feet dragging themselves. 

Everyone observed and commented on how sanitized the house was, the only thing the wife could control. She had tried to control his drinking, asked him stop once, and that was the one and only time he had raised his voice. His son was seven then, this was four years ago, coloring in the living room. His father had never raised a hand to him, but he was terrified of the man nonetheless.

From the outside, they were the perfect family.