Fortuitous

Things at home were different than I remembered.
And, yet, still very much the same.

My father spent nights away from home
and my mother stayed at work longer than usual
and my brother was drinking more than ever.

When I was younger,
my dad would take me out for a drive
and I would bask in the sunlight and laugh
whenever the wind danced through my hair.

My mom would read with me in the living room
with only the sound of silence
and the turning of pages
to accompany us.

My brother would not say a word to me
and I would not say a word to him.
We went years without speaking to each other
and that worked for us.

But now my dad was gone and I could hear him
speaking not so quietly on the phone
or on the web camera
to young women who I had never heard of before
and would never hear of again.

My mom was always at work.
And when she was not,
she was at my grandmother’s house,
doing work that my grandma
insisted did not need to be done.

And my brother was holed up in his room,
only leaving to go out to buy his
alcohol and cigarettes
and to go to work.
My only comfort was that we still
did not say a word to each other.

But then it happened.

My brother was drunk
and my father was angry
and my mother was ignoring.

He pushed him into a wall
and punched him in the face.
And he yelled at him to fuck off
And then he yelled at him to get the fuck out of the house.
And she kept on ignoring.

That’s when I realized what had happened.
This was not an uncommon occurrence
for this had happened many times
when I was younger.

It was not my fault that I found Brian’s company.
It was not my fault that I confused his hatred for me as love.

After all,
how was I supposed to know love
when I had never seen it before?