day 284

I drive a 1997 Toyota Avalon. My mother bought this car when we moved to Lowell. I remember driving to our new apartment when I was four. When my older sister got her license, she was in between jobs and high school. She was kinda like my father and my mother's husband. When my brother got his license, he worked at the grocery store down the street as a manager. Our father bought him a Volkswagen Passat in deep navy blue. One time my brother walked to the thrift store about three blocks away from our new home. We moved into this home when I was in second grade, in 2002. My brother came home with a bunch of hand me down sweaters and shirts. My mother thought it was cute. I felt sad because I always wore my sister's hand me downs and my sister was kinda like my father, but she didn't have any handle downs for my brother. When I was in high school, my brother enlisted into the Air Force. I thought it was cool. He didn't tell my mother and I wasn't allowed to tell her either. When my brother told my mother that he wanted to fly, my mother cried because she didn't want to make another angel out of her son. Our older brother died before we were both born. He was reincarnated into a painting. One time my mother swore the painting spoke and it was my older brother. Sometimes my mother thinks my brother is the reincarnate of our older brother. I think that's why he's the favorite child. Maybe it has something to do with the absence of men in our lives. My brother doesn't fly planes. He's a linguist. Maybe he is learning to speak to my mother in different tongue. Maybe it's a trick to make her feel like there is more than one man in our home.