Leaving Atlanta

“Closing her eyes hard to stifle tears the way pressing down on a cut stops bleeding, Tasha felt dumb as a rock.”

Tasha is upset because she hears about her parents’ separation from her classmate Monica Fisher. Monica has learned this from her own mother. Tasha feel hurt because her parents’ marriage has become the subject of community gossip, and she’s upset that they didn’t think to tell her the truth. Her feeling comes from being ignorant about the circumstances within her own family. She resents that her parents don’t think enough of her own maturity to tell her the truth. The lie seems to cause even more pain than the fact of the marital separation.

“Now, Tasha felt stupid. Monica was right. Tasha was immature. And Daddy was in the wrong too. He should have said, Tasha, DeShaun, your mother and I have been playing with matches and your whole life is on fire.”

This feeling occurs shortly after Tasha’s parents announce their separation, divulging information that Tasha had already found out from her classmate, Monica Fisher. The metaphor of playing with matches echoes a warning that a parent might give to a child. Here, it takes on the mode of the apology and confession that Tasha believes her father ought to be making. The sense of destruction that the metaphor evokes conveys how it feels for a child to watch her parents split up.