Twenty years ago today my father left my mother for the last time, and, more to the point, left me. He should have left her before then, though he never should have left me. He and mom fought relentlessly, and toward the end our home was always tense, always on the edge of exploding, like living in a country at war and even during peace time it felt ugly and dirty. After he left, their relationship for me blurred into one drawn-out conflict and remains so in my memory, not a collection of battles, but a single violent struggle with no spoils for the victor, just more suffering for everyone, especially me. But their final fight stands out, lingers with me like it happened yesterday.

Mom was in the middle of cooking dinner when she asked Dad to run to the store to get a few things, one of them being salt. He returned with everything but the salt.

I needed salt for the soup. That's why I asked you to go, she said.

We can do without salt for one meal, he told her.

Well then watch this soup. I'll make a quick run.

No you're not. For this one meal, this one time, let us not have salt in the meal. Give your son a break, how about it.

Who the hell do you think you are, regulating the salt in my cooking.

And so the fight started, and of course it wasn't about salt, but it was a good enough reason to launch into the same old nasty themes, same cutting words and tones. Here I was, 5th grade, a veteran of these fights since my toddler days, practically growing up through them, and I remember thinking that I had developed into a person during this period, and they hadn't budged on anything, hadn't changed at all. You'd think that they'd have moved on by now, advanced in some way after all these years, reach some resolution, but their hostility for each other blocked all reason and progress. I was starting to hate them.

And then Mom said, Fuck you, which was typically my clue to leave the room, but I didn't want to budge this time. I was sick of them thinking that if I hide in my room, it didn't affect me, that as long as I wasn't visible, they could say all the hurtful things in the world and fill the house with hatred without any consequences. I stayed there and pretended to do my homework. I don't remember the assignment, but I remember it was the last week of fifth grade.

He said: Salt and cigarettes. I'll never buy them for you. I'll never contribute to your stupidity.

Being with you, staying with you, that is stupidity, she yelled. And then turning to me, in her sweet false mommy tone, asked me to finish my homework in my room, as if the only language I heard, or understood, was this baby-pitched voice, and all the yelling and evil they tried to inflict on one another was out of my hearing range, or beyond my comprehension. I too knew how to say "fuck you," and wanted to say it to both of them. But I held it in for the zillionth time. I did, however, stay there, at the table, rather than leave like I always did.

Don't eat my cooking, she said to him. I'm sure she doesn't cook with salt. Go eat her cooking.

I never heard of "her" before, though it sounded like it wasn't the first time she's been talked about. I wanted to look up and see Dad's reaction, but I kept my face in the notebook, too afraid to move. I feared we were entering new territory, a new battleground.

You wish there was another woman, Dad said, that would give you an out, give you an excuse to get out of this marriage, so you can blame someone else other than yourself, afraid to admit that your marriage failed, that you failed, 15 years down the tubes, the prime years of life and yours were a disaster, your life was wasted in a shitty marriage and you know it and still you can't leave or kick me out or make change. Just smoke your cigarettes and put more salt in your food.

Shut up with the goddam salt, she screamed. Dad had said all those nasty things, and somehow it was the salt that broke her. I didn't understand. She went on: You're such a paranoid pathetic little shit, afraid of salt, like it's going to kill you, those little grains are going to organize together and choke you to death in some mad fucking conspiracy.

My mom was always the first to fly over the edge, to curse and make little sense, her emotions getting the best of her, while Dad remained composed, knowing that his composure -- his precision and clarity -- stung her as much as the words he used. I used to hate my mom for getting out of control, cursing so much, sounding idiotic. But most of all, I hated that she lost all the arguements this way. Secretly I always rooted for her.

And then this to me: I told you to get the hell out of here! Get to your goddam room!

She yelled this to me as if I was him, as if I had done to her all the things he had done.

Fuck you! I yelled back in reflex, not knowing what the I was doing. Fuck you, I said again, realizing its strength, how good it felt, that I had become them. Is that what you wanted, I said. Do you like hearing that? I picked up my stuff, crying, and walked to my room.

They didn't say another word, at least none that I could hear. From my room, after the crying, I listened to the silence for a few minutes before I heard my father leave. I didn't know he would never come back.

*          *          *

Today, every now and then the taste of salt hits me in a certain way and raises powerful emotions from some abandoned place I refuse to visit.

Last week, after two years of an OK marriage, my wife said to me: Did you ever notice that sometimes you use a lot of salt on everything, and then sometimes you don't use any salt?

I've noticed.