Thankful
My brother had a knife, one of the
knives from the kitchen, from the drawer by the range. I believed he
would use it.
So did my sister. He was capable of
using it. He had these rages, usually expressed through fists and
feet, but now he brandished those three inches of stainless steel. I
don’t remember what set him off.
It would never be anything important.
Not important to me nor to anyone else, nothing you’d think would
make someone angry, nothing that should make anyone angry. We
barricaded ourselves in the upstairs bedroom closet, held him back
with a chair, until he calmed down or lost interest or something.
I remember my sister’s face, not his.
She was five years older than me and not around so much. Maybe she
didn’t know how he was, not really, not the way I did. She was
trying to make sense of him, I could tell. I didn’t try anymore.
No point. He was broken and that was
that. It was something I had to deal with. Our parents were gone too
much of the time, both working, both grinding out a living for us.
They didn’t see it. The two of us coexisted through school, surfed
together — though he was an asshole in the water — and went our
ways, in time. He even managed to hang onto the second wife. I still
do not try to make sense of him.
It’s likely I didn’t pick up on
things back then. That’s what was, nothing more, water under
several bridges, and I have as little to do with him as practical
these days. It’s not difficult. We live different lives in
different states. There are no family Thanksgiving gatherings.
For that, I am thankful.
note: this is essentially true memory, but also the sort of thing that just might end up in fictionalized form in one of my stories, some day
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