Families in Recovery

From the The Chronicle Herald:

ESCAPE CAME around Thanksgiving.

Three children huddled upstairs, listening to the ranting of the raging alcoholic who was their father. The words came quickly from their mother: "Pack your things, we’re leaving when he passes out," she promised before returning, alone, to face the fury of the man who had threatened to kill her.

They did as they were told. The oldest, only 11, packed no favourite book, no doll to comfort her. Like her brother and sister, she put a few clothes in bookbags, tied sheets and blankets to the makeshift suitcases and carefully lowered them from a second-story window.