The dish slipped out of my hand and smashed into the sink , spraying chips over the counter. I looked down at the mess, Then at the cluttered kitchen table, and beyond that to the dust on yhe television set in the den. I pictured the four unmade beds and the thee clothes strewn bedrooms and the toys in the living room and last night’s newspaper on the floor next to the Charlie’s reclining chai and I yelled at the cat that was licking milk out of a cereal bowl, “What lesson? What goddamn lesson was I supposed to learn?”