"What's this for again?"

Her father's spectacles are perched low on the bridge of his nose when he fixes his daughter with a careful look. His eyes would be sharper if he hadn't just come back home from the office; instead Laurie sits across from him on the floor and peers up at her father who is parked in his favorite leather recliner.

Laurie smiles blandly.

"Family genealogy report."

"Oh. Well," He heaves a sigh, the labors of the day heard in one lungful. "...I guess ask away."

Laurie would feel better if he hadn't said it like that, but she supposes if that's the best she could get from her father it's the best she will get. She shuffles the papers in her hands, drops them flat on the ground, and procures a pen.

"What did Grandpa and grandma do?"

"Hmm...They were...farmers...I think."

Dishes clink from the kitchen. A pot roast scent permeates the living room. Today, her mother is merciful; decides Laurie should focus on school, since she's been late for the bus twice already. It's funny how her mother says Laurie should dedicate more time to her studies than on boys, while Lynda and Annie's mothers hype their daughters up to be married before graduation.

"And before them?" Laurie asked.

The paper is rolled up in his hand. Mr. Myers taps it against his leg as though to remind himself it's still there— that at the end of his daughter's stupid assignment, there is a reward.

"More farmers...I assume."

"Besides that…?"

With his other hand, he scrubs the lower half of his face. Laurie remembers a time when her father would return with a five a clock shadow, a loosened tie, a faint smell of aftershave, a stronger smell of coffee. Nothing has changed now except her father seems to take longer to grow hair on his face. Must come with age. Someday, there won't be a part in his hair like she sees now— someday, there will only be the flakey skin of his scalp.

"I don't know Laurie," her father murmurs. "I feel like for generations the Myers have lived and died in Haddonfield. Some were pastors. Store clerks. Maybe your great great grandfather ran for town office. That's a slim maybe."

"But not grandpa and grandma."

"Well, they're a different case. They decided to move because they liked the city. More people. And therefore less people noseying in. Papa Myers hated that about here. Everyone knew about everyone. The delinquent son. The divorced mom. The affair. It's so…" He rolls his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. If she inherited his nose, Laurie would look more like her father; it's the only feature that seems distinctly different from her parents. Otherwise, they'd look like siblings.

Laurie contemplates feeling bad but her father was the one who brought up the word "Affair", not her.

"Bothersome," she offers.

"I was about to say boring."

"Why did you stay?"

Her father shrugged. "I don't know."

"What?"

"I mean there was a job here." Her father provides. "But, I guess I can't explain it. Something drew me to this town. It's almost like I'm opposed to the idea of living anywhere else despite hating it so much. These are hard questions. Couldn't find anything at the library?"

"I did." Laurie flips over a page of her report, her scrawl is written there in bullet point fashion. "Papa Myer's was the grandson of a pastor."

Her father leans back with a flippant gesture. "There ya go then."

"And the pastor had a child with the mayor's wife."

"Well…"

"And so he was kicked out of the congregation."

"Huh. Didn't know that. Thanks for telling me."

"He never mentioned this to you?"

"Well...Let's remember, back then, a child out of wedlock and infidelity were heavily frowned upon. People don't like to talk about it. Best to let mistakes die."

She thinks her father shuddered so she asks him if he's okay to which he dismisses it.

"Again, your grandfather was wise to leave. If he'd told me these things about Haddonfield, hell, I'd have flown the coop too right outta highschool."

"But then you'd never have met mom."

"Ah well, things are what they'd have been, I guess."

"And then you wouldn't have me and Michael."

If she sounded disheartened, she hadn't meant it. But her father mistakes her words and addresses an emotion that wasn't there.

"No no honey. I'd have you." He said reassuringly, "You'd look different but I'd still have you no matter who your mama was. God had your soul ready; he was just waiting for the baby to put it in." Her father leans forward and pats Laurie's head. It reminds her of herself but younger.

"Dad, isn't Michael a little old to still be living with us?" Laurie asks lowly. The fact that she must soften her voice means she knows if her mother hears, it would ruin the evening. Luckily, her father is not as easily offended nor reactive. But, he, much hesitantly, sends Laurie an admonishing look that is many levels less severe compared to what her mother is capable of bestowing upon her.

"Laurie...Michael is at a major disadvantage."

"I know." Laurie shrugs, "Do you expect for him to live with you forever?"

"Eventually, I hope, he can find a job. Well, that is if anyone would want to take him."

It'd be a shame if her brother ended up as a deadbeat. No girl would want him then. And it's not like he has much going for him, unlike Ben Tramer. Hard enough he couldn't talk. Harder even if he couldn't do the things men his age were supposed to do. Change a tire. Play poker. Get around town. He hasn't even had a girlfriend, and Laurie is pretty sure all the boys in her school had discovered how to use the thing between their legs by now.

Laurie reddens at the thought, the heat scourging under her shirt.

"Why wouldn't they want to hire him?" Laurie asks.

Her father's gaze becomes hard as does his tone. "Don't ask obvious questions."

"Sorry."

From the kitchen, her mother announces dinner is ready and from the corner of her eye she sees the shadow of her brother coming down the stairs. The legs of the dining chairs scrape against the floor.

"Laurie, drag your father out here. He must be starving!" Her mother commands.

Laurie shoots her father a look, to which he rolls up the news paper tighter, waves it at her and says:

"Now enough with this talk about your brother. He's only been here two months and he's alot more independent now. Going on walks and driving by himself. Pretty soon he'll be contributing to Uncle Sam too."

XXX

The upstairs bathroom was hers— Michael was just borrowing it. And that was how it would be until she moved out of her parents' house. Hers. For that reason, Laurie never really bothered to lock the door, unless there were guests over. She just assumed since her parents had the master bath, there'd be no reason for them to come into hers.

And until she moved out, because she would, she'd leave Haddonfield behind and all the rotten no gooders with it even Annie and Lynda, then, could it be called his.

But, without knocking, the golden doorknob shining dimly back at her from across the room, over the tiled flooring bathroom door opens, turns a few degrees clockwise, and the door opens silently. There isn't a yawn of a creak from rusted hinges as it shuts. Laurie sinks deeper into the tub so that her chin dips under the water and mounds of soap bubbles have floated in front of her nose. She ducks because it's modesty that tells her to do so.

"What do you want?" Laurie asks flatly.

By how quietly he entered, if she weren't looking at the door the entire time, she might not have noticed him. And she should've gone on not noticing him, because he goes on not noticing her. In fact, he hardly looks at her, and the only indication that he might have heard her is that he approaches the tub and he sits on the edge, his back to her and his hands braced on either side of him. Her brother is dressed in a black t shirt and dark blue cargo pants that might have belonged to their father when he started off as a foreman.

Michael no longer looks like he belongs on a farm, with those baggy jeans and that hideous plaid shirt their mother insisted he wear. Instead, he can pass as a carpenter boy; maybe he'll be hired as one. Their father has worked for a construction company since before she was born. Now, leading it as a manager, and co-managing it with Mr. Tramer, he's probably high enough in the work hierarchy to employ anyone he wants. Even if that somebody is mute and dumb.

Not that Michael is dumb. But, no one can argue he's not mute. Laurie can bet he can listen to instructions from his boss and that may be the only thing going for him, even though he's not receptive to her when she orders him to fix his own bed and wash his dishes after he eats when their mother isn't home. She'd have a lot more time on her hands if he obeyed anything she said, not that she was unfair to him, but he is twenty one years old and can't he clean up after himself? What type of girl wants a man who still has his mommy picking his wardrobe and cutting his hair? Not Laurie, that's for sure.

Laurie hardly resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"Why do I even bother?" she mutters to herself, but what might have started as ire dissipates when her attention drifts to his fingers curled over the edge of the tub.

No dirt wedged under his nails. Has he ever done anything that required elbow grease? Laurie can bet she's broken more sweat than he has even though he looks physically more dense, his skin darker and more sun beat, the veins in his forearms looking like tree roots under his skin.

He's a sculpted ruffian and how he got that way is beyond Laurie, because for having lived in a sanitarium all his life, it must've run like a prison. It could almost make her laugh— imagining her brother being forced into hard labor at the tender age of ten— and then…

The thought saddens her.

The one time she was in a loony bin, Laurie hated it, and she'd only ever gone when she and her mother picked up Michael that hot day in September that seems like ages ago by now. If the place repulsed her as a visitor, she can only imagine how she'd fare as a patient. Even though her brother stood as testimony to those places being able to turn a crazy man sane; she can bet they can just as well turn a sane man crazy.

Laurie notices Her brother's head is tilted down.

It's become a trend for the past week where he'd enter her room, sit on her bed and stare holes into the floor a few minutes before she goes to bed. At first, she didn't welcome it. But, even when she asked him to leave, he wouldn't. Her brother was a mute. And he was only dumb, when he knew it'd work in his favor. Like not cleaning up after himself. Like not listening to her. Like ignoring how he'd ran over the neighbor's son's football as Michael was backing up out of the driveway yesterday.

So, Laurie let him be because if her mother found out she didn't welcome Michael into her room, she'd never hear the end of it. It's some days that Laurie laments living in a house that put her under the direct scrutiny of someone else. When it wasn't her parents pestering her, it certainly had to be Lynda and Annie to make a comment about whatever she did. All the "you read too much Laurie" "I don't like your musicals, Laurie" "You have the lamest wardrobe" "What? You're plucking your eyebrows again, Laurie?"

Laurie exhales and leans back in the tub, sinking deeper into the water. "I can't wait to leave this town," she says bitterly. "I can't live here till I die. I'd rather live out in a cabin in the woods near a lake. Then I can fish all I want, and live how I want and turn up the radio as loud as I want."

Unbeknownst to her, Michael's hands grip the edge of the tub.

She looks at him.

"But you'll be here," Laurie says, reminding herself. "You don't have a problem with that, do you? Mom definitely wouldn't mind if you stayed with them until they died. I don't know about Dad though. Maybe he'd like you to have a wife and kids. Y'know that domestic life?"

The very image of her brother in an apron cooking is such an outrageous joke Laurie giggles.

"And I can babysit your kids for free since you're family. But, if they're brats then I'll let them burn the house down."

In the middle of her musings, Michael dips his hands in the water, a movement that hardly makes a splash, and Laurie finds his fingertips brushing the front of her chest, the bony part centered above the flesh of her breasts. She doesn't see this, but his hand is open, much like a carnivorous fly trap would be open, only to close when trapping a meal.

Laurie's breath hitches when she locks eyes with him.

"Michael?" she asks.

But, Michael unsurprisingly says nothing. At this point, Laurie would be horrified if a word ever were to come out of his mouth. She has become comfortable with the idea of a brother who can't talk back. And when— if — she leaves Haddonfield with her brother in tow, then there's nothing her mother can do about the way Laurie cooks for him, cleans for him, or talks to him.

"Could I ever ask you to choose me over mom and dad?" Laurie asks. Is that too much to ask of him?

But, still, wouldn't that be nice to move out in the woods, with a companion who can't talk, but is smarter than a dog, and more threatening than one too? Maybe she could get him to chop down her firewood, another outrageous thought. Like she could get her brother to do anything.

Laurie laughs again. "Who am I kidding? You probably want to stay in this shitty town."

Only for the force of his hand to pin Laurie to the wall of the tub and silence her.

She stammers and huffs at the water that entered her nostrils, startled. But, there's not enough time to process what her brother had done, because the very hand he used on her, pinches her chin and forces her gaze to the darkness that dwells in his smoldering eyes.

For the first time, she can say her brother looks menacing, and her stomach might as well have dropped through the tub and onto the floor. She feels physically shrunk, or perhaps her brother has just physically grown. Either way, she is dwarfed by him, and she has nothing as an answer to his abrupt behavior besides the vacant expression he wears day to day. His lips, unchapped and ever a flatline, part —

And then he releases Laurie and his hand skims the top of the bath water and splashes her face. Then he flicks his hands out and promptly exits her bathroom, leaving Laurie sputtering into an enraged fit.