It's the angry boy standing outside scolding his mother because she said father is gone. He likes to believe that his father does as he says, going to buy the cigarettes (with us dads no longer say that most don't smoke and the cigarette machines are removed at least 20 years ago if not longer).
So that boy... all those voices and words he heard mixed with thoughts wishes his mother had left instead of his father or she would be a tree and useful. Useful... mother is not useful.. who told the boy his mother is not? We can say that words don't hurt but believe it does if it is said by your flesh and blood. I wonder how a mother feels while that angry boy stands outside. Perhaps it is better to be a tree.
Who knows the boy is right and his father will come back in twenty years or forty if he's old and suddenly remembers he had a family.