prologue

Lately my brother sleeps in the living room on a brown corduroy sofa that our mother inherited when Grandad passed on. It was the only thing he left her, the only thing she has of his. But it's more of my brother's now, I suppose. He started sleeping there about a month ago. "I can't stay there. I can't do it anymore," he'd say of his room, a small spare space tucked away in the corner of our house, no larger than one of those walk-in closets you'd see on the television. The mattress was pushed up against the wall, leaving only a couple feet for his legs to hang of the end. Stacks of clothes outlined the remaining border punctuated by a single window above his shoes.