[Day 12] The lost art of atonement

Liminal dispatch, 04.20.20

He didn’t mean to break it, of course—it was so early, the blue-gray morning just starting its slow spill of light. He was exhausted. His arm barely grazed it. The slide was swift.

I heard the crash first, then her sobbing. The small celadon dish, his birthday gift to her, shaped like a flower, rimmed in blue, the one he puts her vitamins and probiotics in every morning, next to her plate of tangerine sections. It’s the one she always asks for, because it reminds her of the care that went into selecting it.

He didn’t mean to break it.

He held her, kept apologizing. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was an accident.

She knew he was sorry. She knew it was an accident. Certainly it matters that he didn’t destroy it intentionally or maliciously — that is a different kind of pain —but still, there was real grief in the tears.

They gathered up the pieces, 14 in all.

What should we do? he asked. What do you want to do with these pieces?

This is the place atonement begins.

Atonement is what we decide to do with our remorse, based — and this is essential — on the input from the person who has been hurt. It does not follow the Golden Rule, which says we should treat…