Penny would stop at the sink. She’d hand him a checkered tea towel. “I think,” she’d say, “I’ll tell you about the houses today, and how I thought they were made of paper….”
“And the cockroaches?”
She couldn’t help herself. “So big!”
* * *
—
But sometimes I think they wondered, our parents, about why they’d chosen to live like this. Most often they would snap over minor things, as the mess and frustration mounted.
I remember how once it rained a whole fortnight, in summer, and we came home deep-fried in mud. Penny had duly lost it with us, and resorted to the wooden spoon. She gave it to us on the arms, on the legs—everywhere she could (and the dirt, like crossfire, like shrapnel)—till finally she’d splintered two of those spoons, and threw a boot down the hall instead. As it tumbled, end over end, it somehow gathered momentum, and elevation, hitting Henry, a thud in the face. His mouth was bleeding, and he’d swallowed a loose tooth, and Penny sat down near the bathroom. When a few of us went to console her, she sprang up and said, “Go to hell!”
It was hours till finally she’d checked on him, and Henry was still deciding. Was he ridden with guilt, or furious? After all, losing teeth was good for business. He said, “I won’t even get paid by the Tooth Fairy!” and showed her the gap within.
“The Tooth Fairy,” she said, “will know.”
“Do you think you get more if you swallow it?”
“Not when you’re covered in mud.”
* * *
—
For me, the most memorable arguments our parents had were linked often to Hyperno High. The endless marking. Abusive parents. Or injuries from breaking up fights.
“Jesus, why don’t you just let ’em kill each other?” our dad said once. “How could you be so—” and Penny was starting to seethe.
“So—what?”
“I don’t know—naïve, and just, stupid—to think you can make a difference.” He was tired, and sore, from building work, and putting up with the rest of us. He waved a hand back out through the house. “You spend all that extra time marking, and trying to help them, and look here—look at this place.” He was right; there was Lego everywhere, and a scattergun of clothes and dust. Our toilet recalled those public ones, in the time of her spoils of freedom; not one of us aware of the brush.
“And what? So I should stay home and do the cleaning?”
“Well, no, that’s not what I—”
“Should I get the bloody vacuum?”
“Oh, shit, that’s not what I meant.”
“WELL, WHAT DID YOU MEAN?” she roared. “HUH?”
It was the sound that makes a boy look up, when anger spills over to rage. This time they really mean it.
And still it wasn’t quite over.
“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE ON MY SIDE, MICHAEL!”
“I am!” he said. “…I am.”
And the quieted voice, even worse. “Then how about actually showing it.”
Then after-storm, and silence.
* * *
—