I'm gonna stop the car.

I remember the family trips we took when my brother and I were kids. Whether my family flew or drove to wherever we were going to vacation, inevitably ended up driving around in a rental car. My brother, Matty, and I would always end up fighting with each other in the back seat of the four-door Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme or a Chevy Lumina. Yelling at each other usually ended up with us hitting each other and pulling each other’s hair. My brother, Matty, fought dirty. It was an unspoken code that you did not hit each other in the face. Really it was not an unspoken code, it wasn’t a code at all, and it was something that I held to. Unbeknownst to Matty, you did not hit in the face.

“You weirdo. Ugh, you have a mole on your foot. MOLE FOOT. MOLE FOOT. MOLEFOOOOOOOOT!”

And with that my brother hit me in the face.

“Matty hit me! He hit me hard!” I wailed.
Matty yelled, “Mom, she’s calling me names!”
I scream back, “Well, now I will, you dirty, pregnant wildebeast.”

My dad roared, “Goddamnit! I’m gonna stop the car-“
My mother interjected with, “You’re getting hysterical!”

I don’t think any of us knew who she was talking about, who was getting hysterical, because she didn’t look up from the Datebook section of the paper she was busy reading with her reading glasses that had the stem broken off while flossing her teeth. When she finished flossing, she opened her window to throw out her floss.

“Lauren, stop baiting your brother”, my mother said dismissively as she dropped her floss out the window, which the wind caused to fly into the backseat and right into my brother’s smirking face. My brother responded by punching me in the arm.

“Why are you hitting me? Mom did it! She did it on purpose because she doesn’t love you. You are adopted; they felt sorry for you!”, I called out.

Mom lifted her head from her paper to look back at us, “Lauren, stop. Matty, that’s not true. We love you very much.”