My mom half-heartedly tried to keep the house clean when we first moved in, but it was already disgusting. We moved in when I was four, my brother was twelve, and my mom was pregnant with my sister, about to burst at any moment. The house was really a trailer, with three bedrooms and one bathroom, which I was embarrassed of throughout high school. It’s run down, but the rent is cheap. The windows had plastic bags taped over them to keep the cold air out in the winter and the walls were made of thin wood that bent when I pressed too hard on them. The carpet had years of dirt caked down, and there was a layer of dust on the kitchen counters that never stopped building. We cleaned up mouse droppings and had traps scattered under cabinets and behind couches. At first, my mom vacuumed once a week and scrubbed the kitchen floors on her hands and knees. She’d dust the drapes while on the tips of her toes and wash the sinks wearing bright yellow gloves, but when you’re the only one in a household of five making that effort, it doesn’t work. Despite our assigned chores like dishes and laundry, my family only made the house worse. My dad hosted a party once a month and all his friends tracked in dirt and spilled their beer. One person even vomited on the floor while holding themselves up by our living room curtain. Nobody cleaned it up for over a week. My mom eventually gave up on having a clean home.

The yard was perfect though. In the front there was an apple tree that flourished in the Spokane heat. There was a small garden bed in front of the house and a ramp that wrapped around the house from the front door to the back door. The ramp was rotting, but I’d ride my Barbie scooter up and down during the summers until the ramp started to give— one day my foot went right through it.

The driveway was long enough for my dad to park two of his trucks, and he parked broken down cars that he planned on restoring one day in the grass lining the driveway. There were two rusty cars on either side of the driveway and in the backyard my dad parked a camper that didn’t run to house his fishing and camping gear. The house had a carport that he had a rotting boat under and a few dirt bikes. We kept wood there for when we had a fire and all the kids stored their bikes there. Next to the carport, beside the camper and leading into the backyard, my dad had a large, broken down truck that belonged to his father, and a Monte Carlo that he promised he would have running by the time my brother turned 16. Gerad is 29 now, and the car still doesn’t run. Different car parts and random pieces of metal lay in between all of his stuff. I never questioned why my dad had all of this broken down metal sitting there, it was just a part of my life.

The backyard was my moms. Over the years she’s made a large garden bed for flowers and vegetables, a clothesline, a compost pile, a lawn chair set, and a tetherball pole that she got cheap for my siblings and I. We often found refuge in the backyard. When my dad and his friends were watching a football game or my dad was in a mood, we’d have a picnic out back, barbeque, read our books or play games until the sun melted into the trees. Gerad often hung out in the backyard all day so he didn’t have to be around my dad.
Gerad hosted kickball tournaments in the backyard with the neighbor boys and friends from school. I thought all of his friends were so cute, and I begged to play. He’d let me play if they were short a person, but if not, I was in charge of keeping score. When I got to play, I always wanted to win so badly, and when I lost every single time, I threw a fit and went crying into the house. Gerad would always stop playing with his friends to comfort me, and then to tell me to get over myself. It never worked; I always loved causing a scene.

Gerad was my babysitter. When I was an infant, he changed my diapers and watched me until my mom got home from work. When I was a toddler, I remember him making me eggs covered in maple syrup and breakfast sausage. We ate that almost everyday in the summer and he’d make it for me on the weekends during the school year. I mostly remember the summers we spent together. This was before he had a car, or a job, or an injury so bad that he would spend his whole summer in the hospital and never really be the same.
We would play outside and watch movies. I’d watch cartoons in the mornings while I waited for him to wake up. Gerad spent a lot of his time on our family computer, which belonged to my grandpa until he died. He would have a movie running or let me listen to my Avril Lavigne CD while he chatted to his friends on AOL. Even though we were eight years apart, and he was seen as my authority figure, he was my best friend. I remember thinking it was cool when he stole my dad’s alcohol. I would defend Gerad when him and my dad got into fights. Gerad tried to protect me from everything going on in the house.