Rache

“Hey Dad. Whatcha making?” I yelled out as I slammed the door behind me

“Perpetual motion machine. Oh wait. We already did that. Now we gotta find a way to slow you down.” He grinned at me. I grinned back.

That was the last conversation I remember with my dad, before the fighting started. He quit his work as an engineer to become an inventor and then never made anything. Mom had to take a second job after a while. I guess she got tired of working so much, and then the fights started.

“Hey Lizbutt, back from stealing the old folks food?” Patrick leans out of the living room into the hall and grins. He sort of looks like dad, but with sandy blonde hair instead of brown: real tall, with arms that looked like they were too long for his body.

“Shut up, Patchbrick.” I said. “I don’t eat there any more. Not since Rache died.”

“Rache is dead?”

“Yep. Today at four-thirty. It was a big event. You should have been there.”

“No wonder you’re staring down the hallway so early. How come you do that, Lizbutt? Just staring down the hall when you first come in?”

“Patrick, how is it that my older brother, the smart one of the family, has no clue about grammar, and can’t pronounce my name correctly, while my younger brother, who has the downs, always pronounces my name perfectly, and has impeccable grammar?”

“Ah-ah,” he said, shaking his finger, “Mostly it’s because he cares. The whole point of knowing the rules…”

“Is so you can break ‘em. I know. Where’s Mom?” I asked.

“When do you normally come in, miss slacker? Mom doesn’t get off work for another hour and a half. So Davvie won’t be here either.”

“He won’t?”

“You have been in a haze, haven’t you? Remember? Special day care so Mom can work? I can’t take care of him because I’m trying to graduate? Summer school? Things you could help out with if you would ever come home?”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Alright! Gosh, you wonder why I never come home!” I went to my room and slammed the door. The bed was made, of course. My room was completely trashed, but the bed was made. If I didn’t make it, Mom would.

“Rache, why are people always on my case?” She was wearing her blue dress that day. Bright solid blue, with a giant blue belt around the waist. I always wanted an exact copy of that dress.

“Who’s always on your case?”

“Patrick, mostly. Sometimes my mom”

“Well, there’s two options: Either they love you and are concerned for you, and they just have no ability to communicate better than they do, or they hate you and they just want to make you as miserable as possible.”

I laughed. “B,” I said. “Definitely B. But can’t it be a little bit of both?”

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “If they just didn’t like you very much, they’d leave you alone.”

There was a knock at the door. “Liz, I’m sorry. I just…”

“Shut up, Patrick,” I said.