Free Wrecked by E. R. Frank

blue armchair cushion for second. Rounding that, I slipped on the wood floor and grabbed at the window seat, trying to stop myself. The bud vase went down. And shattered.
    “God damn it!” my father yelled from somewhere in the house. We heard his feet pounding the hallway above and then pounding the stairs. “That better not be glass!” Hecharged into the living room and saw us stuck, frozen. His face was pink. He scanned the room, taking in the cushions, the pom-pom lying innocently in the corner, the fragments of glass, like a kaleidoscope exploded.
    “Did you do this?” he asked Jack. Instead of answering, my brother took a step forward and half leaned down. I stood very still, hoping my dad wouldn’t ask me if I had done it.
    “Stop,” my father said. Jack straightened up fast.
    “I was going to clean it up,” he tried to explain. I held my breath, waiting for my turn.
    “You don’t clean broken glass with your hands,” my father told him. “What is the matter with you?” Jack stood still again. My father stared at him, jaw muscle jumping. “What is the matter with you?” he said again. “I want an answer!” Jack stayed quiet. “What is the matter with you, Jack!”
    “I don’t know.”
    I started breathing again. Maybe my dad wouldn’t notice me as much as Jack this time. You never knew.
    “Harvey?” My mother had arrived at the living-room door. “Oh.” She stared at the shards on the floor. She looked around the room, checking the paperweights and vases and sculptures. “The bud vase?” she asked.
    My father pointed at Jack. “Don’t just stand there. Get the broom and the dustpan.” But then, before Jack could move, my father said, “What were you thinking?” Jack didn’t answer. “What were you thinking?” my dad asked again. His eyes were wide open with lots of white showing, like the Black Stallion, upset. Jack stayed quiet. “I’m asking you a question, Jack. What. Were. You. Thinking?” That vein in his forehead started hopping.
    “Harvey,” my mother said. “Calm down.” I inched towardthe door. I wanted to get to the hall, the stairs, my room. Away from my dad, away from his making you feel stupid and wrong.
    “I’d like to know what he was thinking!”
    Tears began to bloom out of Jack’s eyes. My mother’s mouth set itself into a thin line. She couldn’t do anything. I inched farther.
    “Stop it,” my father said. He hates crying. “Stop it now.” Jack’s tears didn’t stop. My father shook his head and snorted through his nose. “Get the broom.”
    About an hour later Jack banged through my closed door and marched right up to me. I was leaning against two pillows on my bed, braiding beads into my hair and trying to stay invisible. He was sweaty and tearstained. He didn’t say a word. He just punched me hard twice in the arm. Really, really hard.
    “Dad,” I call back into the kitchen. I tuck the Windex under my arm and shake out the wet rag. “Jack didn’t break that vase.”
    I hear him drum his fingers on top of his deck. “Okay.”
    “Okay?” I stay where I am and keep talking loud so he’ll hear me. “Did you just say Okay’?”
    “Anna, I’m in the middle of a game.”
    “But what does Okay’ mean? Did you know that he didn’t break it?”
    “I don’t know. Probably. I don’t really remember.”
    I walk over to stand in the kitchen doorway. He’s got his feet up on the seat of a chair and his laptop propped on the lazy Susan, which is so old it doesn’t spin anymore. “Why did you punish Jack and not me?”
    He sighs and keeps his eyes on the screen. “I didn’t punish Jack,” my dad says.
    “You yelled at him,” I remind him.
    “Yelling isn’t punishing,” my dad says. I can see his eyes moving across the screen.
    “Yes, it is.” I know that what I’m saying is true. I’m sure of it.
    “No.” He taps his mouse and looks up. He lifts his glasses to rest on the top of his head. They get buried in his hair. It