Return
He thought of it, sometimes. Of one day simply not coming home. He could drive on, down the highway and across the country, if needed. He could buy a bus or plane ticket, ending up in another state, maybe even another country. He could take up a new language and a new identity, not just by name, but by facts, completely divorcing himself from his current familial ties. He could be anyone and anything, but mostly, he would have the freedom to do so, however he chose, in whatever way he liked or wanted, with no one else being affected, no one else having any comments or say.
David thought about these possibilities not with real fervor or intent, but with the idle daydreaming wistfulness of a man who knew that his day of true happiness would never come, that his life would never be fully his at all, but rather overlapping and impacted by the needs and even the simple existence of his three brothers and his sister. He thought of what it would be like to have no one to look over his shoulder after, no one insulting him and defying him, no one forcing him to move or hide or explain himself when he was not ready or willing to do so. No one to support but himself, no one to shell out hard-earned cash on who would not appreciate his sacrifices, no one to flaunt their own satisfaction where he retired most nights to bed alone. No one to push him, each day, just a little closer to the edge of sanity, to the limits of his control of his rage…no one always present, always hoping that one day, he would give them the entertainment of an explosion that they had wanted to witness all along.
He thought of it, could picture it with hazy detail in his head, and he knew that if he could find a way, he could be better off for it. If he could do what he dreamed of, he might even, finally, be happy.
But in the end, David could never bring himself to do it, or even to think about it in more clear details, for fear of tempting himself into taking steps to make them something closer to reality. They were his family. However trapped and unhappy he might feel, in the end he could not bring himself to draw away. In the end, each night he would return to them, to whatever house they were dwelling in, knowing that only with his siblings did he truly have a home.