A History of Forgetting by Caroline Adderson

Alison. Her mother’s refusal to approve still felt like pins stuck in.
    â€˜I have to say I don’t. You could have redone your exams. You could have gone to college if you wanted.’
    â€˜I didn’t want to go to college,’ said Alison.
    â€˜Can you tell Jeffy and his friend we’re almost ready?’
    Good. A way out of that conversation. She passed through the living room. Her father was in the La-Z-Boy, his gouty feet raised up on the footrest, a can of beer propped in his crotch, Billy on the couch. Hockey was on, Billy in charge of the mute button. ‘When do I get my free haircut?’ her dad asked.
    â€˜Anytime you want. But I’m not a hairdresser yet. I’m an apprentice for a year.’
    â€˜As long as it’s free.’
    From the kitchen her mother called, ‘I still think she would have made a terrific nurse!’
    â€˜She plays nurse with me!’ Billy yelled back and Alison’s father guffawed.
    Jeffy had a friend over for dinner, though neither of them had made an appearance yet. Alison paused outside his door, patchworked with stickers, heard them inside grunting the secret guttural of teenage boys. When she knocked, though, something else—a desperate cluck and gurgle. ‘Jeffy?’
    No answer.
    She knew she wasn’t supposed to, would undoubtedly meet his wrath, but she opened the door anyway. At first glance they seemed locked in a confusing kind of love pose: on the unmade bed, Kevin Milligan, on all fours, straddled Jeffy who, squirm ing, arms reaching, held Kevin by the collarbones. A few months ago, she’d accidentally barged in on Jeffy in the bath room, caught him on the edge of the tub jigging, so knew this time not to scream, but to duck out fast, except that just then Kevin looked up. He was a bulky kid with coarse yellow hair, his lips drawn back to show big teeth, his whole mouth stretched wide with straining, his face very, very red. Alison’s mouth opened, too, and she pitched forward slightly, but didn’t make an utterance or really move. For weeks afterward she would remember this moment as her own near-asphyxiation, the hor ror and shame of doing nothing cinching off her breath. Kevin was strangling her brother and Alison just stood and stared.
    Then he bolted. He hurtled off the bed and out the door, knocking her aside, Alison blinking after him, afraid to look back at Jeffy. Afraid for two reasons: first, Jeffy might be dead; second, she might be relieved if he was. Jeffy, at thirteen, was the most infuriating person she knew. Across her back, lash marks from where he still ignobly snapped her bra. ‘Fatso’ was his name for her. Once, right in front of her, he’d swallowed her diary key.
    When she did finally turn, he was still flat out, but breathing as if he were inflating a beach ball. ‘Are you okay?’
    â€˜Fuck off,’ he croaked.
    â€˜Supper’s ready.’
    Slowly, he began to raise himself from the half-dead. He sat a minute staring at the floor. His face in profile—the skijump nose, the thick lashes against his still­ flawless skin as he squeezed his eyes shut—was prettier than hers.
    â€˜What was that?’ she asked.
    A tear got away. Stunned, she watched him whisk it off his cheek. As far as she knew, he hadn’t cried since he fell out of the tree and broke his arm when he was ten, around the time he last spoke to her without sneering. Around the same time he’d stopped saying ‘please’.
    â€˜Please.’ He barely mouthed the words. ‘Don’t say anything.’
    â€˜But you didn’t do anything!’ She came over and put her hand on his shoulder, but he looked up and ran her through with his glare.
    â€˜Leave me alone.’
    She hovered there a moment, then left, closing the door behind her.
    Kevin had insinuated himself in the living room with Billy and her Dad. She glared as she passed him, to no effect. In