Chapter 1
Saturdays are often a lot of fun for children and teenagers, but they seldom were that way for me. My typical Saturday morning involved waking up early to make sure my autistic brother Ryan didn't raid the refrigerator and devour everything in sight (my mom and older brother Clark both worked at Taco Bell and had to leave early, and so I was expected to keep Ryan out of the refrigerator), cooking breakfast for Ryan and myself, doing chores, doing homework, and keeping Ryan occupied until Mom and Clark got home from work. Sometimes Ryan would take a brief nap, which would give me some time to read a good book or draw a picture, but that didn't always happen.
I'm Chalice. During the time at which this story occurred, I was fourteen, my brother Ryan was sixteen, and my older brother Clark was eighteen. Ryan suffers from a disorder known as autism, which refers to a group of brain development issues. Autism often affects one's communication skills, patterns of speech, and other behaviors. Ryan is mentally on the level of a three or four-year-old. He also has seizures. My mom and my dad divorced not long after Ryan was born. Though I don't remember much of what it was like when my dad still lived with us, I recall a lot of fighting going on between my mother and him. My siblings and I will sometimes visit him on holidays and during the summer, but we don't go to see him very often: he lives in Arkansas, and it takes a lot of money to drive there (we live in Louisiana). On our mile-marker birthdays, my siblings and I sometimes get a birthday card and ten or twenty dollars in the mail from Dad. Anyway, at the time in which this story is set, my mom, my brothers, and I all lived in an apartment, we were barely managing to get our bills paid on time, and we were getting enough to eat by the skin of our teeth. Clark had to take on a fatherly role and work, and I was pushed to play a motherly role due to the fact that my mother and Clark worked, which left me at home with Ryan.
I woke up on a chilly Saturday morning in October. Ryan was fixed on the other end of the sofa, staring longingly at me. I arose from my resting spot and moseyed to the refrigerator to find something for breakfast. "Music," Ryan demanded from the other side of the compact apartment room (Ryan often spoke in fragments rather than phrases or sentences-it was part of his autism). I heaved a heavy sigh. "Ryan, I can't play music because Mom couldn't pay the cable bill," I muttered. He seemed to not understand. "Music," he cried again. Vainly struggling to remain calm, I snatched a frying pan and some olive oil from the cupboard and some pancake batter from the refrigerator. I once again told my brother that I couldn't play music from the TV. "MUSIC!!!" my brother exclaimed. Boiling with anger, I dropped all my cooking supplies. The lid to the pancake batter became dis-latched, causing the contents to erupt as it bounced against the floor. The bottle of olive oil shattered, scattering shards of glass everywhere. The frying pan clanked eerily against the hard tile. "Ryan," I huffed, "I'VE ALREADY TOLD YOU TWICE THAT I CAN'T PLAY MUSIC!" I shouted. Bothered by my rant and the ear-splitting sounds of the cooking materials meeting the floor, Ryan hastily stood up and ran to me, his feet bleeding from stepping on the pieces of glass. Suddenly, he grabbed my head on both sides, shook me, and squeezed. I was so terrified that the incident left me temporarily mute. Though he stopped after a few seconds, it felt like it'd been hours. Ashamed of what he'd done, my brother whispered, "Sorry, sissy," kissed my head, and ran into the bathroom. Fighting to breathe, I grabbed my asthma inhaler and inhaled two puffs. Setting some potato chips on the sofa for Ryan to eat when he came out of the restroom, I sought shelter in my mom's bedroom and sobbed.
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