Calamity

the family for the weekly Saturday morning breakfast ritual Dad had restarted after the baby died.

With little variation, these breakfasts always consisted of eggs (made any way you wanted, though Dad was really only good at making scrambled eggs and merely proficient at the rest), bacon, toast, coffee and orange juice. The breakfasts were pleasant times, although Tyler almost always slept through most of them and grabbed his eggs while Delaney was running off somewhere and Brendan was heading to his bowling league and Dad, of course, was in the bedroom trying to motivate Mom out of hibernation.

The aroma of coffee grabbed him immediately and his whole body perked up. He headed right for the coffee maker, hoping the rest of the family would reserve comment on his early arrival until at least after he had enough coffee to settle his stomach and sooth his stinging eyes. He managed a long, delicious gulp before Delaney spoke up.

“You look like crap,” she said.

He shrugged. “I must take after my little sister.”

“Ha. Ha,” Delaney said in exaggerated fashion. She was sitting in her usual spot next to Dad, Brendan across from her. The lone seat across from Dad waited with an empty plate for him. When Mom used to eat with them, before the shit with the baby, Tyler would squeeze next to Brendan and give Mom the seat opposite Dad. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw the extra chair at the kitchen table.

“Surprised you’re up,” Dad said and took a bite of toast.

“Yeah, well, I am.”

“I see you are your usual charming self,” Dad said.

Tyler sat at the empty plate and took another long drink of coffee. It tasted particularly good this morning, and he began to feel better. Today was a new day after all, and maybe everything would turn out alright. He knew things weren’t so easily fixed (just look at Mom, if, that was, you dared to enter her bedroom and see what she had become), but it felt good, no, wonderful, to at least pretend everything was going to work out. The sunlight streaming in through the kitchen bay window had pushed the dark thoughts away. Sunlight was good at that.

“How was your date?” Delaney asked in a mocking voice but with eyes that betrayed her real interest.

“Fine,” he said and kept drinking his coffee.

“Ohhh,” she crooned, “it must have been magical.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“You know she’s like, weird, right?”

You raped me. You did it!

He shrugged again. It was the perfect response to just about every question.

“The girls at school think she’s like messed up in the head. I mean, she lives in that trailer trash place and —”

“Anyway,” Dad cut in, “how do you want your eggs?”

Another shrug later and Dad was making the scrambled eggs he did best.

“You know what I mean, though, right?” Delaney asked.

“Yeah. Let me worry about it.”

Mouth opening and closing with muted words as eyes burned red in flickering light. Just a dream.

“I’m just saying …”

But that ended that string of the conversation. She wasn’t trying to be a pest; she was actually trying to warn her older brother, to help keep him protected from some of the crazy bitches out there. She was almost sixteen and, at least according to Dad (who still proudly declared to friends and strangers alike how Delaney skipped second grade) really smart, book- smart anyway. They had had their fights and bitter moments and he had enjoyed torturing her every so often by sometimes swapping her shampoo with olive oil or, on one occasion, mayonnaise. She got her revenge for the mayonnaise: she dropped a pair of red socks into a load of his whites and all his underwear and socks came out pink. He had thrown out a whole bunch of clothes that day and made Mom buy him new stuff. He had been so pissed at Delaney for that, but that was how things went between brother and sister. Besides, she was pretty cool, even for a girl. She liked good music, like Spoon and even old ones like The Clash, and she read Stephen King novels, which immediately made her a cooler girl than eighty percent of them out there. Still, she was his sister, and as a result …

“You’re not going out like that, are you?” he asked her.

“What?”

“With your hair like that and your face.”

Concern flashed in her eyes and she started grooming herself with her hands without seeing what she was doing, and then anger conquered concern. “Shut up.”

He shrugged. “I just don’t want my baby sister going out in public looking like, well, like you. It would be embarrassing for the family.”

“Fuck you.”

“Delaney,” Dad said immediately. “Please.”

She leaned across the table and whispered, “At least I don’t like boys with snaggleteeth.”

Sasha’s snaggletooth hadn’t bothered him, not even when he was on top of her and pressing his lips against hers as hard as he thrusted inside her. This morning, his own lips were a bit sore. As well as the thing in his pants that had gotten him into this mess.

When he didn’t respond, Delaney’s face softened. “I’m just joking. You can barely notice it.”

“Forget it,” he said.

“It’s only noticeable when she talks.” He couldn’t help but laugh with her; she had a great laugh, the contagious type. Though he’d never tell her, he loved her for being able to make him laugh, especially this morning.

The eggs were off the pan and steaming on his plate. He had thought he was hungry but the sight of the yellow clumps and the sulfur smell wafting off them almost made him gag. He drank more coffee and pushed his chair back a foot.

“Stop pestering your brother,” Dad said. “He’s not used to being up before noon.”

If Tyler didn’t redirect the conversation, this would soon evolve, or devolve, into a two-front onslaught against him. They were only teasing, of course, not trying to be mean, but he knew what would happen if they kept prying at him. He’d snap, say something he’d regret (like the truth) and lock himself in his room where the only thing waiting for him was an endless mental movie of what had happened last night—you raped me.

“Do I look ugly today?” Delaney asked Dad. While that was a perfect set up for Tyler to throw in a quip— no more than usual, sis—he resisted because that would only encourage a return attack from her. Or because you’re done with childish things. You’ve been with a woman—you’re now a man.

Then why did he want to vomit?

Dad smiled at her, touched her hair, shook his head. “You got your mother’s wispy hair, like straw. And my deep eyes, like canyons. In fact, go like this”—he held out his arms from his sides—“you would make quite the scarecrow.”

She frowned at him. “Har. De. Har.”

He held up several strands of her hair in a goofy Mohawk. “Don’t you think your sister’s face would scare the birds away, Brendan?”

But Brendan wasn’t listening. He had that composition book he always carried around with him open on his lap.

“He thinks you’re so frightening he can’t even look at you,” Dad said. He was on quite the roll this morning. Maybe Mom was feeling better. Or maybe he had accepted how she was dealing with things. Either way, it was nice to have life in the house again.

“Stop it,” Delaney said and swatted Dad’s hand away.

Brendan still did not look up. His eyes were narrow slits and his eyebrows pushed almost together in concentration.

Tyler touched him on the shoulder and the response was as if Tyler had zapped him with a stun gun: a tremor raced through Brendan’s body and his head snapped up and to the side, eyes suddenly huge, skin taunt.