When we were both in our middle-ages, my brother and I found ourselves living together again.

We were eating lunch when Jason casually said to me, “Thanks for saving my life.”

I looked back at him, confused, answering, “Which time?”

“When you carried me from the fire to the swing set.”

“Oh, when you tried to set the house on fire while I was reading?”

He answered with his recollection of the incident, but my brain was already back on the first hill in Shelton, in my bedroom on top of the two-story blue house on Division Street.

I loved my attic bedroom. Mom used one half of the attic for storage, but the other half was mine. I created and lived worlds in that attic.

It could have been May or very early June because it was a sunny day and not too cold or too warm. Jason was in his room at the bottom of the attic staircase, and I was at the top, in my room.

Jason would be turning four on the sixth of June. I was seven years old.

My mom shouted up the stairs that they (meaning herself and her boyfriend, Louie) would be back “after a while,” and we were to “behave.”

I didn’t like the feeling of responsibility. I just wanted to read my book.

I don’t know how long it was that they were gone before I heard my brother’s voice. I was annoyed. I was reading the copy of Black Beauty that my grandma had gotten for me, and I wasn’t yet to the end of the chapter.

I yelled down the stairs, “In a minute.”

The sounds coming from the bottom of the stairs became more urgent, and I put my bookmark in with a huff and laid the orange hardcovered book on my desk as I mumbled under my breath.

Getting to the bottom of my bedroom stairs, I looked to my right, and the room looked as orange as the cover of my book. My brain took a second to process what it was seeing.

It was like a wall of flames with my tiny baby brother underneath, attempting to put them out with his hands.
I grabbed him and rushed through the kitchen out the backdoor and put him on the swing-set.

Then the seven-year-old child that was me rushed back into the house where the only phone I knew was, to call the fire department.

Once I called them, they told me to get out of the house immediately and call my mom from the neighbor’s home. I took Jason and ran across the street.

I remember we didn’t know the people across the street until that day. They were strangers to me. They would remain so.

I called from their phone, asking for my mom by name, and informed her of the fire. Louie and her rushed home.

“You’re so irresponsible,” she screamed at me once the firemen had left and the neighbors were back behind their door. Jason’s box springs from under his mattress were on the lawn, wet from fireman’s hoses.

“I’m not allowing you to take care of your brother for a year!”

Was I supposed to be upset about that? I was confused. The spanking that followed answered that question. That was the confirmation. I was supposed to be sad; it was a punishment.

I wasn’t, though. I was happy. I was thrilled that we were headed to our grandparent’s house on Hood Canal for the summer.

I do remember Grandma deciding to cure Jason’s desire to light fires by having him sit at a table under her supervision and light match after match. I don’t remember what the goal or the end of that exercise was, but I remember him and her sitting at the table while he lit match after match after match. But fire would remain a fear of mine well into adulthood.

We both loved our summers on Hood Canal. Grandma and Grandpa’s house was right on the water. There was a concrete bulkhead keeping the house elevated from the beach level, and Grandpa had built a plywood dock jutting out from the bulkhead to secure his and the neighbor’s boats.

The dock floated on the water and went out about half the length of a football field. When the tide came in, we could fish off the end or put on our swimsuits when it was warm enough and jump on in.

Then came the hot days of summer when Grandpa would take the aluminum dingy, usually tied to the dock, and row it out to his big boat and take us waterskiing or fishing. His big boat was named for us grandkids.

“The Mar-T-Jay,” included letters from each of his first three grandchildren. When the fourth came along a few years later, he got grandpa’s name instead.

My brother and I spent many summer days and nights at the Hood Canal home our grandparents would sell when I reached twenty. It had become too far from the areas they needed and wanted to be.

As my young family was born, Jason went to replace me in our father’s custody. A move that broke both mom and grandpa’s hearts and would set my brother up for the addiction that would eventually take his life.

As a grown child of abuse, I have hated and forgiven my parents more times than I can count. My father’s been dead for almost a quarter century, and today, but the hate in me is new for killing my brother.

However, I’m not an innocent piece in this intergenerational trauma puzzle. I wasn’t the mom I wanted to be, and I have my own sins to ask for forgiveness from my own descendants.

How does the pattern end?

I see my smallest grandchildren, and I know how little time they spend with me is probably a blessing for them. I have no desire to ever hurt them with my pain.

Unhealed trauma still burns within my soul. It is often the only company that I keep.

I hope the healing will come more gentle for future generations.