There's a picture, hanging on the corkboard on the wall, of a messy room, dirty clothes mixed with the clean littering the ground, toys long outgrown that were never cleaned up littering the floor like minefeilds, spare change and dirty dishes piled among a random assortment of junk on the dresser, punctuated by a bed filled with more pillows than any one person needed, all flat as a board, and a mass of blankets all strew about like a hurricane had just blown through.
Mathew can almost smell the over-used axe deoderant just looking at the picture.
"What's with the picture of the disaster area?" Carlos asks him, raising an eyebrow. "Do you just have a picture of your room to remind you not to let it get that bad ever again?"
Mathewsv always had a clean room, he doesn't like messes. He feels a lump in his throat when he looks at the picture.
"Tt's not my room," and Carlos seems to hear the low note in his voice, and gives Mathew a concerned look, "It's Alfred's."
A picture once taken to mock his brother for "a living in a garbage dump". Back in happier times. Carlos breathes out a long breath.
"Shit. Sorry."
Mathew shakes his head. "Its fine."
It's not fine. Alfred's room is neat, now. Tidy bed with tucked in blankets, a carpet visible and vaccumed clean, dresser so neat and bare that Dad has to dust it weekly. No dirty sock smell or axe deoderant, just the musty smell of an unused room. Alfred's room has been clean for far too long now.
Mathew wishes he took more pictures, stupid things he didn't know he would miss. Dirty sneakers abandoned in the middle of the entranceway, instead of on the shoe rack, candy wrappers and coffee-cup rings left on the table, condiments for sandwiches left on the counter and not put away. Even with Dad, the house is too clean, too neat. Too empty.
Until one day it isn't.
Until one day he trips over boots in the doorway when he gets home from school, and there's voices in the kitchen, and a coat on the counter where Dad says never to put things that aren't food or food related, and someone's left the cupboard doors open and -
And there's someone leaning on the counter and drinking orange juice right out of the carton and Mathew's hurtling across the house to either punch or hug him, he doesn't even know-
And it doesn't even matter, because Alfred'sback!
And Mathew's big brother catches him in something between a hug and a headlock and Dad is laughing and someone's elbow hits the bottle and send orange juice spilling all over the counter and getting mess everywhere and Mathew can't even tell if he's crying or laughing and Alfred'shomeand everything is alright.
The house is messy again.