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I’ve never really jived with the rest of my family. I mean, they were good people. For a certain definition of good people, you know. Not to say they were mean to me or anything- far from it.
They would duck to the right, and I would duck to the left, and it just ended up with a lot of running into each other in hallways.
It’s why my dad always grunted whenever I came home, but called over my siblings. I have two, if you’re asking. I’m the middle child, because my mother was worried she hadn’t produced the appropriate ‘spare’. Heir and the Spare, and a good-for-nothing brother to boot.
They aren’t monsters. No doves were bashed, nor fires started for reasons unknown in our household. But when it came time for high school science, only one of us fainted during frog dissection. And it wasn’t my sisters.
Were I a stupider child, I could have joked about being the mailman’s kid. But, my face was a mirror of my father’s, and until puberty hit, my voice was identical to my sisters. If it were possible, I would have wondered about maternal doubt. It was through her that we had our lineage. Not that Father was a chump, but the true power was in Mother.
But I could never handle the squishier sciences. One of my earlier memories is sitting in the courtyard of my family home, trying to move a snail off of the steps. But every time I tried to pick it up, it would suction to the steps and I didn’t want to hurt it. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven. My oldest sister was maybe ten. I didn’t notice her watching me from above.
“Why don’t you just pick it up?” She asked, startling me into yanking my hands away from the snail.
“I don’t wanna hurt it, Lettie,” I say, frowning at her.
“Then why are you bothering it?” Letizia asked half jumping over the stairs and my crouched over form.
“Because someone will step on it and I don’t want it to die,” I said, pulling on my ear nervously.
“So you’d rather bother it into not moving it at all than make it a little uncomfortable for a moment so that it’s safe?” Letizia asked, crouching next to me. I inched away a little uncomfortable. She was right, of course. But I didn’t want to hurt it.
She could see the hesitation in my face, and she snatched the snail off of the steps. I yelled and tried to grab it back, alas, I was short compared to my older sister.
In the struggle, she pushed me back, and threw the snail for distance, easily clearing the courtyard walls, and into who knows where.
“Why did you do that?!” I shrieked, my six-year-old vocal chords straining. “It didn’t do anything!”
“Snails are bad. They eat plants and they would ruin the garden. I learned that in science.” She said, shaking her hand as if to flick off the snail goo.
“But he didn’t DO anything!” I said, my eyes watering.
“It. It was going to. It would eat up all of Mama’s garden if it could. Don’t cry. It was just a snail.”
“But... but it didn’t do anything. It was just sitting there.” I repeated helplessly.
Letizia just sighed. At the sound of my sobbing, mother poked her head out of the window.
“Letizia! Get up here right now! And stop harassing your brother!” Mother said ducking back in, but her thick black curls stayed behind, dangling from her office window. “And Lawrence, stop crying. You’ll be fine.”