I look at the clock, expecting it to be six, maybe seven, since when I slept before seems like several hours away. It's been thirty minutes.
"How can you be this fucking stupid and still manage to breathe?"
I blink and think about remembering my dream, because I can this time, and then I realize it's my dad screaming at someone. One of my younger brothers probably, since it's too early for mother to be home from work.
I walk out with half my hair piled on top of my head and stand next to my youngest brother. He's ten. He's got ADD. He's not as quick as my other brother and I were. He's the youngest of the family. He's working on math problems. He's in tears.
Of my dad, I ask, what's wrong? I suggest a small break where everyone does something else, I ask about my other little brother (I have two. One is ten, the other is fifteen.) knowing that he failed chemistry and dad's upset over that. Dad's in the middle of a speech about him when he walks into the room, too, and screaming ensues.
I stand there for maybe half an hour, speaking in calm tones, asking dad if he wants to walk, my little little brother if he wants anything to drink, explaining to my dad that we're not failures. Not any of us, not even him.
It's half an hour after that (life is moving in thirty minute intervals today) when dad walks in, eyes puffy, and sits on my bed.
"That mistake I was yelling at your little brother for?" he says, "The thing that made me go apeshit? I was wrong and he was right." he says. "I yelled at him for doing the right thing over and over."
"The universe is a mean guy," I say, and to myself I wonder what everybody is going to do when I leave in six months.