Red Sox and Yankees 10/20/04

He jumped up out of the chair in the family room where we were all watching the Red Sox and the Yankees in the sixth game of the American League Championship Series.

"So how much have you been working on it?" he yelled as he crossed the room. "This is the way it always is."

When he reached the entryway he swung his fist violently into the wall, stopped, and turned to face me.

"You always think you know everything, but you don’t know anything," he yelled. "You think you’re always right but you’re actually always wrong."

He stormed out the front door slamming it behind himself.

I sat up on the couch where I had been laying. A moment before, Valerie had asked Morgan if Sam, one of the carpenters, had given him any good ideas about how to put a finish on the secretary’s desk and bookshelves he had built in the alcove where the fireplace had been.

"No," he said.

"So is it done then?" she asked.

"No," I said.

That’s when he jumped up out of the chair.

Valerie was sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the room that had once been in our kitchen.

"You shouldn’t have said anything."

"I didn’t think I had. Have you seen the selves? He has nails underneath them holding them up. Is that finished?"

The front door opened and Morgan walked back in. As he entered the family room, I awkwardly stopped speaking. I thought for a moment, and then said, "I wasn’t saying anything I wouldn’t have said in front of you."

I don’t need to hear anything from you.

He walked quickly through the room and down the hallway. I got up from the couch and followed him out to the garage that was now part cabinet shop, part kitchen, and part warehouse for boxes filled with things that had once filled our house.

"Hey, if you don’t like living here you can just get the fuck out," I yelled from the doorway.

"Oh, I knew that was coming," he said.

"You knew it was coming because it’s true."

Later, Valerie and I lay in bed in the darkness.

I don’t like when you two fight,

I wasn’t fighting.

You were both angry. He looked just like Matthew used to look when the two of you would argue, punching walls, and doing the gangster thing with his arms.

It’s different than it was with Matthew, I said. Matthew always hated me.

He doesn’t hate you.

Yes he does. I was just talking about bookshelves.

He was talking about me. He hates me, and I don’t understand why.

Well maybe….

I interrupted her.

I need to go to sleep now.