August is over, but when it was here, you could hear all these cicadas chattering at a frequency that felt designed to shatter all sense in the brain and turn you insane. In my bedroom, I opened the screenless window and listened to their hellish roar. The terror of it.

They formed the soundscape to my process as I wrapped an extension cord around the fan.

I have never been on the same page as anyone.

I’ve heard the question “How’s Sawyer?” more in the past week than I ever have before. Momma’s always got the phone on speaker before and after work. Aunt Celia, Uncle Rod, Gramma, and even my kid cousins, Connor and Georgie, all want to know how I am.

“He’s doing all right!” she says. “Gettin’ lots of rest and all that good stuff.”

She never even asks how I’m doing, though. She paints her nails and watches TV and brings men home every so often when she thinks we’re asleep.

Uncle Rod says we should move out of the forest. “Great big world out there,” he says. “Can’t be stuck in Bill’s bumfuck Georgia fantasy forever.”

Funny how Rod is just like my dad, Bill, but thinks he is different.

“We’re all adjusted here,” Momma says.

I have never been adjusted and neither has she. She stares at the overflow of dirty bowls by our sink until no more can fit. Says, “You or Annie gonna take care of these dishes anytime soon?” I think she has more problems than me.

My dad had more problems than both of us put together. He slapped me in the face if I stared at him for too long. He sold prescription drugs and was a cable man. At the grocery store, when the self-checkout said “Help is on the way,” he punched the screen and shouted, “I don’t need it, you bitch!”

His skin looked like a graffitied skating ramp. He did improvement projects, like painting our whole house puke green. We live in a section of forest at the end of a long dirt trail. Regular wheels aren’t made to weather it, but Bill liked it out here because he didn’t want neighbors.

My dad was a sadist who dropped a ten-pound weight on a duck at the lake when I was five. I think he forced Momma to marry him and make a family so he could move it to the woods and then abandon it.

“Sawyer!” Momma’s voice is more grating than a blender.

If she cares, she’ll come and find me.

Jake

Mom and Benji argue about everything, so I keep my earphones in all the time.

We’re on our way to school, speeding some because we’re late. The Tahoe passes Freedom Parkway and John Lewis Boulevard as Benji and Mom scream about . . . something. The dress code, maybe, or Benji’s flopping grades.