Before Dawn

My older brother, after drinking a little one night, came home and forgot to put his car in park. He stumbled inside and passed out on the couch downstairs with his shoes still on, and his car, a 2007 Toyota Camry that once belonged to our uncle who had to stop driving because of his cerebral palsy, started rolling down the hill.

It popped the curb going thirty-ish and crossed from one yard to the next before colliding with the house at 3314 Allington Drive, which was the exact same as our house: same layout, same square footage, different colored brick—the entire neighborhood a never-ending reflection of itself. 

And you would think, okay, the car hit the front-bottom corner of the house. That’s storage. That’s a crypt of old treadmills and infomercial workout gear and maybe some American Girl dolls sealed in plastic wrap because your mother bought them from a friend at 3314 Allington Drive who’d discovered bed bugs in her own house, which, much like ours, had the same floor plan. Except that front corner room, the friend used as a sort of sewing sanctuary, so you have to figure that if a car is going to connect with any part of the infrastructure, then that front corner room is best. 

But what if that friend has family visiting from out of town? Say a sister and her kid but not the husband, because he’s still back in Robinwood because they’ve had a fight, too many fights to count, really, but this one was particularly bad, hence the separation, the need for space, the lack of it, their suitcases stacked sloppily beneath the window that looks out onto the front lawn, an air mattress blown up on the floor, an old crib brought back in from the garage, and just up the street, my brother, sleeping like a baby.