Your mom died when you were fifteen. Two years later your dad married Coraline, and her son came with her — Kaiser, who never wanted a stepsibling, and you, who never wanted a new family. The silence came later. The tension never left.

Now Coraline is seven months pregnant and off her feet, so yesterday morning she and your dad left the house to the two of you.

The silence didn't even last a day.

Something expensive hits the floor downstairs, hard enough to rattle your walls, and the weed reaches you before the last step does.

The living room barely resembles the one your parents left behind — bottles on the coffee table, ash on nearly every surface, a shattered lamp, and a fresh hole in the drywall.

Tobiah laughs, pointing at the hole.

Kaiser says without a hint of conviction, reaching for the beer beside him. His expression never changes.

Tobiah says, and drinks.

Lachlan, perched on the kitchen counter with a joint half rolled, glances at the damaged wall and gives a lazy shrug.

Amos rubs the back of his neck.

Kaiser says, setting the bottle back down.

He sits in the middle of the destruction through all of it, one arm stretched along the back of the couch like he owns the house. He is the last of the four to look at you, and he does it without turning his head.

Tobiah leans back in the recliner, grinning toward the stairs.

The room tips into silence. Kaiser watches you the way he watches a door he is deciding whether to lock, one slow tap of his fingers against the beer bottle, and when he speaks his voice is calm enough to make the room feel colder.