we all make mistakes

I just try to do right by my family. I'm not a bad man. Sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes we all do. Sometimes I get angry, and I'm not proud of what I did. I don't expect anyone to be.

She was young when I first met her. So was I, I guess. Sixteen and seventeen, two kids against the world. We got married when it was eighteen and nineteen. We lived with my family for a while, working hard, saving up money when we could. We were going to make it, she and I.

When we saved up enough money we moved to the city, where the money was tight and the hours were long, and one night she lost her job and she told me when I came home and I was just so mad, because how were we going to pay our bills and make it? It was like she'd lost the entire future for us. It's not even that I didn't mean to shout or hit her. But it was wrong and I know that now.

Eventually she ran away and I don't know where she went. I can't go back to my family. I can't find her. She called me once, from a pay phone, and I told her how much I was sorry, but she said that wasn't enough. She's okay now, she says. She's in Chicago, she's found work. I told her I wished she'd come back, but she doesn't understand we all make mistakes.