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were no such
thing as good byes.

    When Thad entered the back door, his sister
rushed toward him in a huff. She was a few inches taller and a
couple pounds heavier than him. Their lack of physical resemblance
was due to their having different sets of parents. They were both
adopted.
    “What the hell, gone for nearly three days?
What were you doing?”
    “Getting laid, I suppose,” Thad replied,
kicking off his boots. He and Vange sat outside in the truck for
the past hour while Alexa rubbernecked from the house. Vange’s
shouts for him to get out of the cab still rang in his ears.
    “Real mature.”
    He wiped his runny nose and clenched shut his
watery eyes. She sighed shaking her head and asked, “What’re you
wearing? Good God, is that a chick’s shirt?”
    Thad threw Vange’s soiled shirt at her and
walked away.
    Alexa stalked after him through the galley
kitchen and scooped up his trail of discarded filthy clothes. She
wadded them in her largish hands, of which she was overly
self-conscious. Usually, she hid them under long sleeves. “Mom’s
spent the last couple nights sitting at the table all weird, just
like when Aunt Kaye died, remember? She’s at the end of her
rope.”
    “No, she’s only fallen off the wagon yet
again.”
    “Oh my god, you leave for three days, hole up
in a scum pit motel with that skank ho, our own cousin of all
people. Yuck,” Alexa berated him. She followed him into the
bathroom and tossed his dirty clothes into the hamper. “It doesn’t
help that mom has to hear about your incestuous sex-capades while
buying groceries.”
    Standing in only his saggy briefs, he turned
on the shower and tested the water. Thad asked curiously, “How did
she hear about me at the store?”
    “Who knows? Christ-on-a-stick, hurry up!”
    “Everyone in this twisted little Peyton Place
know everyone else’s business,” Thad said.
    “Just hurry! FYI, we were supposed to be at
grandma’s three hours ago,” Alexa said. She folded her arms causing
her thumbs to frame her breasts and her long fingers to dig in her
armpits. She reprimanded, “So, why did you hook up with that
floozy?”
    She was six years his junior, but his adopted
sister acted as if she had been around since his conception. It was
as if his questionable behavior somehow reflected inadequate
parenting on her behalf.
    “It’s a real drag having two mothers,” he
said. Knowing there was no getting rid of her, he hopped into the
tub and tossed his underwear out at her.
    “Ugh, you suck so much,” she cried out. “Real
mature.”
    His mind wandered freely despite a
distracting cloud of smoke drifting from the other side of the
shower curtain. She turned on the old clock radio he had brought in
the bathroom fifteen years ago when he first discovered the joys of
masturbation. She fiddled with the dials until she found a
testosterone-fueled song she liked.
    “What is this noise? Turn it off.”
    “Grunge, buttercup. Welcome to the Nineties,
the Eighties are dead already,” she said.
    A minute of the Nirvana song was all he could
stand, and he shouted over the hiss of water, “If all you want is a
cigarette, Al, take one and get out.”
    “Really, you shouldn’t smoke. It’s so bad for
you,” she said. For a passing moment he thought perhaps she had
left him in peace, but even in silence and separated by a curtain,
he felt her daunting presence.
    “Grow up. It’s time to end this whole lost
little boy act,” Alexa snapped. She threw the cigarette into the
toilet and began scrubbing her hands. She silently fumed, preparing
for a grand exit. “Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?
Mom’s worried to death her oldest child will end up a deranged
mailman shacked up with a skank, living in a trailer park.”
    The water ceased pulsing, and he reached out
from behind the curtain for a towel, which she picked up off the
floor and handed to him. Stepping out from the tub while dripping
wet, he wrapped the damp towel around