“Holy moly,” I said. “That’s the coolest thing ever. I always wanted to be able to moonwalk.”

We heard a thump and then another one. Christine burst into the hallway from the direction of the kitchen.

“Help,” she yelled. “Dad and Johnny are trying to kill each other.”

“That was fast,” Carol said. We pushed ourselves up to a standing position.

“I can’t believe you were having a staircase meeting without me,” Christine said as we all ran to the kitchen.

Our father and our brother were rolling around on the kitchen floor like two overgrown puppies.

“Stop,” I yelled.

“Like that’s going to work,” Carol said.

“One . . . two . . . three . . .” I tried. Counting always worked on preschoolers.

“Do you have a squirt gun?” Carol said.

“Sorry,” I said. “Fresh out.”

“Do you want me to run home for one?” Christine said.

“No time,” Carol said.

Johnny and our dad hit a kitchen chair. It keeled over on top of them. They kept rolling, the chair thumping along with them.

Carol turned on the kitchen faucet, filled an empty beer bottle with water.

Then she poured it all over both of them.

“That was a work shirt,” Johnny said once we were seated at the tiny dinette. “You better wash and iron it for me.”

“Talk to Carol,” I said. “She’s the one who baptized you with a beer bottle. And you’re lucky we didn’t let you and Dad murder each other.”

As soon as I dragged him out to the trailer, Johnny had changed into a long-sleeve T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants in the tiny bathroom. Judging by the stuff strewn all over the place, I was pretty sure he’d relocated from the living room sofa and was sleeping here now.

After she’d doused them with water, Carol had escorted our dad up to his man cave. While she was yanking him out of the kitchen, he shook the water off his thick white hair like a polar bear. “Did you see that?” he yelled. “I had him arse over teakettle. You can’t blame a fellow for being a legend in his own time, can you now?”

“I was totally winning,” Johnny said now. “And I wasn’t even trying that hard.”

“I’ll fight you with one paw tied behind my back,” I said in my best Cowardly Lion impersonation.

Johnny ignored me.

A flashback bubbled up to the surface. “Hey,” I said. “Do you remember when I had the mumps and you told me I looked like a fat chipmunk and gave me a piece of Bazooka bubblegum so you could laugh at me? That was so mean.”