132 The Meadow My brother hurried to the side of the house, started pulling the green hose around the lilac bush. I avoided what I could, but I still got my feet wet and crunchy. They, or I guess someone, had thrown eggs at our house in the middle of night. I wondered if it happened while I was in my dream, and that the sound of the chips hitting the dock wasn’t the sound of eggs slamming against our walls, against the roof and the garage door. The driveway held the remnants of at least a dozen eggs. It looked like our house was decorated for Easter. “You know who did this,” Mom said. She scowled, her brow crumpled, toward the direction of our neighbor. “I know. It’s obvious,” Dad took the hose from Adam, checking how tight the connection was for the nozzle. “Okay, turn it on.” It took most of the morning and into the afternoon for Dad to spray down the house. He’d turn his head, crinkling his neck, at our neighbor’s house, muttering frantically under his breath, I assumed, a steady stream of curses. Though, I imagine it was worse than anything I heard when he worked on the truck, or when he messed with the furnace, or when he spent a week on fixing the corral fence, digging out the posts, smashing his fingers and thumbs. Perhaps one of my favorites was when he changed out the fridge. He forgot to plug it in before sliding and shimmy it into its hole, and instead of easing it out, he got on top of the counter with his tummy flattening my report card, and strained to reach the outlet, pouring out profanity after curse, “Fuck this fucking shit dick, you gonorrhea infested cock eye, asshat, shit-eater. Get the fuck into the goddamn holes. You piece of shit-dick, Nazi ass-fucker, let me, just…” It was a whole production. When he finally got the fridge in, he said that someday I would mature into the gift of persuasive negotiation. That’s what he called it. Mary had been okay. She had walked from the crash to their house, her hair resting on her black jacket looked tired, defeated, the curls and waves frizzy and exhausted. But a couple days
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