Chapter Two - "Home Is Where The Heart Is… Or Is It?"

The most annoying thing about being grown up is holding your feelings in. When you're young you long to be grown up and free, but when you grow up you realize that the only freedom is in being young, expressing your thoughts in a way unrestrained by social norms, by culture, by politeness. Something else that is very hard is to think of someone you watched grow up as an adult. I know that Luka is thirty-five years old, but I can never shake off the memory of him as a child, always keep thinking of him as the baby of the family. He's taller then me now, but I remember a time when he barely reached my waist, remember when I could lift him up and hold him in my arms. I wish I could do that right now – hold him, tell him that I can fix all his problems, but I can't. He's troubled by something much more complicated then a broken toy, and it hurts me to see him so strange, so unlike the brother I used to know.

This year Tata wanted everyone in the family to be here for Christmas. Much to our surprise, Luka said he would come, and I volunteered to pick him up. I did not know what to expect – he has dutily sent photographs of himself every year, but one can not learn much from a photograph. Over the years, the photographs became rarer, and we only got one this year, a serious Luka in his lab coat looking slightly away from the camera. I don't ever remember him being serious – but I guess it is a part of growing up, the changing of behavior and appearance. With age, we lose things we once thought to be permanent, and are surprised at the reflection in the mirror one day, wondering who the hell the ugly old fart is that is reflected there instead of you.

My sister, her daughters and our sister-in-law all crowd into the hall and nearly throw themselves on Luka. He drops his suitcase and tries to look for a way out, but he can't escape, and for the next couple of minutes he just stands there, petrified, while enthusiastically greeted by Vesna, Marija, Kristijana and Suzana. As a payback for his behavior during the car ride, I stand aside and watch. When I feel that he has had enough greetings, I move in, and with a practiced move, separate him from the women. Luka looks slightly dazed, and there's lipstick on his cheek – Vesna's, judging by its ugly color. My brain, seemingly fixated on him as a child, flashes back to Vesna's wedding thirty-two years ago, Vesna kissing a three-year old Luka on the cheek, Luka laughing and running to me so I could get lipstick and cake off his sticky face.

Getting back to the present, I get a handkerchief out of my pocket, lick at a corner and rub it against the lipstick, managing to get most of it off. Luka still looks like he has been hit with a shovel and stands there looking like he has dropped down from the sky. Finally, something in his head clicks and he mumbles, "It's very nice to see you," while staring at the floor.

"You have grown up," Vesna nags, clasping her hands together and producing a smile that nearly cracks her face in two. She's my sister, but she can be an annoying asshole at times. Yes, if you haven't seen him for ten years – he's definitely grown up.

Luka's smile becomes almost desperate and I realize that I have to negotiate again.

"He's just gotten here – let him change, let him rest for a while."

Luka looks at me gratefully and gets hold of his suitcase again. Kristijana and Marija decide to take on the job of helping their Ujo Luka to his room and begin to chatter, updating Luka on the newest fashions and music bands. He looks relieved to be freed from Vesna and disappears up the stairs with the girls talking away about what skirts are popular this year. Suzana remembers about something she has to buy and runs out to the store. Vesna grimaces and retreats to the kitchen.

I remain in the hall, thinking about what I just saw. I've just realized how much of my brother I had lost to the war. In my mind, I didn't expect him to be like this – I hoped that he'd still be the way I last saw him, almost ten year ago – a smile constantly on his face, always ready to argue about any conceivable topic, full of energy, happy, innocent in some way. He has always been the quiet one, but considering that being quiet in our family is stopping to breathe between sentences, he was pretty normal. Now, there's almost nothing left of him. He is like a ghost – silent, passive, scared of talking with his own sisters, like a stranger in his family's house. There are lines and wrinkles on his face where there weren't any, traces of gray creeping into his black hair, dark circles under his eyes, age and life leaving their marks on him. I want to scream that it is not fair, that for all the shit he has went through he deserves a new life without troubles, but whoever is in charge of life wouldn't listen to me, just as always.

After thinking about all of that depressing crap I decide that what I really need is a drink. I walk into the kitchen and pour myself some rakija I keep hidden in the back the cupboard in case I am in a bad mood, which seems to be quite often these days.

"Isn't it a bit early to be drinking?" Vesna remarks sarcastically, trying to look bitchy and pious at the same time.

"It's never too early for a good glass of rakija," I mutter, trying not to scream at her. This is one of the times when I wonder how we managed to share the same womb without killing each other for nine months.

"You're a drunk," Vesna murmurs.

"And you're a bitch," I shoot back, pouring myself another glass.

Vesna grimaces and her face becomes even uglier.

"There is no need for name-calling," she says, her tone deliberately calm, but sounding like she'd like nothing more then to strangle me. "You have to realize that drinking like this is not healthy. Why do you not come to church with me on Sunday – maybe Luka can come too-""

"Fuck you and your church," I spit out, starting to get annoyed. Great, we have been alone in a room for less then five minutes and I already want to kill her. She glares at me, her eyes full of hatred now. "I've told you many times I am not interested. And don't even mention the church to Luka, or I'm going to make you regret it."

"Fucking sinner," Vesna hisses to herself, but still loud enough for me to hear. "You will go to hell for this."

"Gladly," I retort.

Vesna starts banging pots and mutters something along the lines of "fuck her infidel house" and I snicker into my glass. God, I love to annoy her.

"Luka seems a bit quiet," she says tersely, the pots still producing a cacophony of sounds.

"He barely talked in the car," I say, and fill up the shot glass again.

"Give him time," Vesna mutters, for a moment stopping the pot symphony. "I think he is just tired from the road."

"I can give him all week, but he is still not going to be the old Luka."

Vesna bangs a pot particularly hard against the sink and curses again. She gives up on banging pots and starts nervously checking on the stove, her shoulders shaking slightly when she thinks I am not looking. For a moment, I feel sorry for her and want to put the alcohol away. Before she divorced her husband and moved away, he'd beat the crap out of her when he was drunk. I know that because I was the one who actually threw him out at last. Vesna used to be different when we were young. The life she got changed her a lot, made her so unlike herself that I at times think that I am the only one in the family remaining the same. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, since I don't know how I look to others.

Our family was so different just ten years ago. I know many people who have been barely touched by the war, who have been able to not think about it every day, but our family had the bad luck of losing whatever sanity it had to it. The war took a miserable life and two good ones and made them terrible, destroying the good that was left in us, killing whatever little innocence was left in us. In case of Janko, the war damaged his body, but he himself damaged his soul. Vesna's life was hell long before the war. Luka is the most tragic victim in the family, because the damned war took away something that he deserved and that he was not supposed to lose, because he should not have suffered and he could have had a good life that he had truly earned. I don't count myself because I have never tied my life to anyone's, and thus I never had anyone to lose, and my life outside the family has been free of obligations.

I really wish my mother was alive right now, more then I usually do. Somehow, my mother was always able to mediate any conflict in the family, to calm down the warring parties and make them discuss their disagreements over coffee and cookies. But she is dead, and her children are a bunch of fucked up, sick people with enough problems to depress any psychiatrist. The pessimistic drunk, the holier-than-thou bitch, the asshole cripple and the damaged soul, quite different from the happy children they once were.

I pour myself another glass. The last one today, I promise myself. My liver isn't what it used to be – I really should cut down on the alcohol, but when life sucks,
it's the only thing that keeps me from going nuts. I raise the glass in a silent toast to the insanity of the Kovac family and drink it in one gulp.

Author's note: This chapter is dedicated to my fan Andy – thanks for cheering me up!