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02.15.02 - 11:32 p.m. the steps from the foyer to my room in chattanooga are carpeted in a pattern that matches each step perfectly, a long runner of pink flowers on a green base, one bunch for each stair, my accountant father lining up each with a ruler and a balance. Every trip home means 19 stairs up and down and up until my alarm is packed and the face wash i left in the shower and my old tennis shoes. Its hard, this leaving with stay at home brothers fighting in the kitchen and babies crying and mom making sure no one leaves the house without navel oranges. I feel transparent then...the knowledge of my leaving again sinking into my father's shoulders and my mom's voice with tears that she folds into brother's socks and kitchen towels. Alex carrying some heavy things and stopping to say "hey thats mine" before shoving a tee shirt ive had since i was ten under his arm. My up and down is constant for about an hour, stopping to taste spaghetti sauce or hold jolie leone or assure erik that iv'e been drinking just about enough for a girl my age. Conversations seep through me and a little bit stays leaving something different on the other side...i have to keep some of it and i listen hard. And then something i wont forget. I yell down into the kitchen that im dropping something down the stairs, and im okay. I send one empty laundry basket down the stairs, plastic bumping against carpet and wall, settling...i sit at the top of the stairs to tie my shoe...silence, and then, two pale legs ending in white shoes, eric, followed by the short quick steps of my mother and her red clogs and around her hip the stubby tennis shoes of a nephew she has in her arms. Two alex legs tanned and scabbed find a place next to the pale legs. Four bodies from the waist down, still, besides the rythmic swinging of max's chubby feet, worried i had fallen. I cried immediately slow tears that seeped into the corners of my eyes. They turned and went their separate ways, shoes and tanned legs leaving, let down max plodding loud across the hardwood yelling "elbow elbow elbow" and pointing at his ear...i didnt tell anyone but sat at the top of the stairs and thanked someone. � 
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