I had never imagined that her idea of structure could look like an iron cage.
The responder asked me another question.
“Has your wife ever talked about survival training before?”
“Yes.”
I paused.
“Not like this.”
“What did she say?”
“She said children shouldn’t be too protected. That fear teaches them to react. I thought she meant ordinary things. Letting our daughter climb stairs with supervision. Encouraging her to walk instead of carrying her everywhere. That kind of thing.”
The responder nodded slowly.
“And did you ever disagree?”
“About normal parenting, yes.”
I swallowed.
“About putting her in a cage with snakes? No. Because I never knew she was doing that.”
That was the part I couldn’t get past.
I had not been there.
I had not seen the cage being prepared.
I had not seen my wife put the snakes inside.
I had only arrived after the metal had already started crashing.
