Tuesday morning I woke up angry. I was sleeping on the bunkbed Mom keeps for all the little kids she babysits. It�s not a sideline job or anything, my mom just really loves babies and little kids and all of her friends seem to be women with small children who are only too happy to leave them in her care anytime they want to go out and have fun. Mom is very good with babies. She knows just how to talk to them, and refuses to spoil them. She can teach infants to sleep through the night and rowdy toddlers to play nice. She never loses her patience with anyone under five.

There was a narrow path to the bed through all of Andrew�s belongings, which were thrown haphazardly into this room. It wasn�t like I was stuck staring at all my brother�s belongings, though. It was all tucked away in bags and boxes.

I woke up angry and felt worse as the day went on. It was all I could do to be civil to the people around me. My stepbrother Rob arrived in the early afternoon with his fianc� Sammi and their 4-month-old son. It was my first time seeing my cute new nephew, but I was in no shape to be around people. Stepdad let me borrow his van to go to the nearest beach with a book for several hours. The dark clouds and intermittent rain squalls kept everyone else away. I was able to forget everything and sink into the novel and by the time I emerged I was calm enough to control myself.

Back home my sisters and stepbrothers were organizing a bowling trip. I drove out to Fort Walton Beach with Alice, who wanted to stop by Dad�s house and see how he was doing. He was doped up on the valium she had gotten for him that morning, and his friend Doug was sitting on the couch, watching him sleep. My father has a waterbed, but it hasn�t been set up in the year since he moved into this townhouse, so he sleeps on the love seat. Doug was relieved that we were there to take over, as he didn�t want to leave Dad alone for fear that he would take more pills. Alice told him we were just stopping by for a few minutes, but I felt a pang of conscience and decided it would be rather undaughterly of me to go bowling if the old man was in danger of overdosing. So I stayed and watched TV while my dad slept. I expected Doug to go home to his wife and kids, but he evidently preferred hogging the remote and making stupid sexist comments while he flipped through the channels.

As soon as Dad woke up he poured himself a glass of gin. I asked if it was wise to mix that with valium and he ignored me. When he started talking about which bars he wanted to hit that night, I called for a ride home from my sister Amber. Luckily, they had just finished bowling and I was able to spend a little time with my siblings at the Coffee Shoppe, where we all had some crappy late-night breakfast food and some not-at-all-crappy bonding time.

I sat with my mom for a little while before I went to bed. She told me that the night before, Amber had seen our dead brother in her room. �She woke up and saw Andrew standing by her closet door, so she shut her eyes real quick,� Mom said. �Then she thought �it�s only Andrew, silly, there�s nothing to be afraid of� and when she opened her eyes again he was standing at the foot of her bed. She said she could just feel his presence filling the room. Isn�t that cool? Josh woke up, too, and he couldn�t see Andrew, but he could feel the presence, and he was so scared he couldn�t go back to sleep and Amber had to hold him the rest of the night.�

I think that story was meant to comfort me. It seemed to comfort my mom. I slept with the light on the rest of the week.

On Wednesday the extended family members began to arrive. All three of Mom�s brothers and three of her five sisters came to Niceville. Alice and I took Dad out and got him the first real haircut he�s had in years. He wanted to look decent for Andrew�s memorial and he was too doped up on valium to resist us. In the car, he tried to start a fight with me once or twice, but I faced him down. After all these years he�s still trying to convince us that our mother was the bad guy in their divorce and I�m more than sick of hearing about it. For the first time ever I brought up his shitty behavior: the break-ins, the vandalism, the fucking death threats, and he came back with �I can�t believe you just said that! Your mother perjured herself in court, and I have proof. I have the transcripts at home and I�ll bring them out and show you exactly where she perjured herself!�

�Yeah, whatever, Dad. I don�t give a fuck what she said.�

He gave up. I�m sure it was a shock to him that I didn�t just go along with him the way I usually do, nodding at his bullshit and pretending I sympathize. Leave it to me to pick the worst week of his life to grow a spine, but all my energy was taken up with keeping myself from crying or screaming, and I didn�t have any tolerance left.

Alice asked me to tell Dad that she wasn�t getting him any more valium, because he was going through it too quickly. She figured I might as well give him all the bad news, since I was already picking on him. After she left I washed his dishes and tidied up the place as best as I could, making sure to wear plastic gloves the whole time. Dad�s roommate has hepatitis, so I don�t eat or drink anything while I�m there, and I was reluctant to use the bathroom or sit on the furniture without a clean towel. Mom loves to tell me all about the hepatitis, and she would be pleased to know how paranoid I am about it.

Dad and I went to a sub shop and managed to eat a few bites. All week I felt hungry and I kept getting food, but I could only eat a tiny bit at a time. We gave up on lunch and just looked at each other. His eyes were fogged with drugs and sadness.

�Life isn�t supposed to be like this.� I said.

�No, it�s not.�

He went right to sleep when I brought him home, and I went back to Mom�s house, which was filled with her family. Rounding the corner of the entranceway I saw Andrew sitting on the couch, slumped forward in his characteristic pose. I did a double take, then turned my head sharply away. My heart was pounding and I forced myself to take a couple of breaths. �Okay,� I thought, �this has all been a joke and he�s here to apologize.� But when I looked back at the couch it was my cousin Ryan sitting there, a colorful hat pulled over his curly hair, wondering why I was staring at him.

I went into the bathroom to cry, and when I was done I splashed water on my face and headed for my room to lie down for a bit. I ran into Amber in the hallway, bubbly and excited Amber, whose three best friends had flown in from Georgia, Texas, and Las Vegas to be with her. �What�s wrong?� she said when she saw my face.

�Well, uh... my brother died.� I said, and tried to smile at her.

�Oh, yeah.� She said, and we laughed a little bit while she hugged me.

When my eyes were less red I came out of my room to hang out with Mom�s family. They were all very nice. Alice was working on a huge collage for the memorial service. She had pictures of Andrew spanning his whole life, and pictures of him with as many of his family members and friends as she could find. She did a beautiful job.

Eventually my aunts noticed that I could not turn my head at all, and they fussed over my stiff neck and insisted that I lay down with a cold herbal pillow draped over my shoulders. I slept until my dad�s sister Susan, my very favorite aunt, arrived just after midnight, and we met for drinks at the Ruby Tuesday�s near her hotel. Her son Kevin was with her. Kevin had, coincidentally, been on vacation in Orlando the week before and we spent a couple of days together visiting our grandfather and going to Sea World. It was nice that we had a chance to get reacquainted when we didn�t have a funeral hanging over our heads.

Dad�s older brother Jimmy and his wife Micki drove down with Susan, much to everyone�s relief. Jimmy and Micki are very soothing people, they just exude wisdom and kindness, and Dad is much more likely to behave himself with them around. They are 15 years older than Susan and 17 years older than Dad, and after the long drive they needed to go to bed instead of meeting us at the bar.

Alice and her boyfriend went with me to Ruby Tuesdays. We all drank too much and once I was home I fell asleep right away, even with the light on.