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dad’s basement. The kids weren’t allowed down there, just the wives, one after the next, each getting her piece. You know what’s weird? A week earlier and he would’ve been down there right now, doing who knows what nasty shit online.
    Here’s something: I have no idea how many brothers and sisters I have. There isn’t a good way to count. There’s full, half, step, and foster. Who goes into the tally and who doesn’t? I’d like to tell you I loved each of my siblings, but that’s pretty much impossible. And what about the ones you’ve never met—the children a sister wife left behind somewhere to marry your dad? Do you count them? Oh, and your sister who’s now married and no longer allowed to talk to you because you’re a guy and she’s a girl and around here brothers and sisters do it all the time? Do you count her? And what about me—I’ve been gone six years, the Prophet told everyone I was banished to the bleak pits of damnation. Do they count me? I wouldn’t. I’m going to guess I have a hundred siblings, maybe one-ten. That’s about as accurate as I can be. My dad used to say he never went to bed at night without thanking God for his children. And the crazy part is: I believed him. Every word.
    Mind if I tell you some more? We slept in triple-decker bunks; or five to a bed, head to foot; or on the couch, four boys elbowing over three cushions; or on the living room floor, on blankets and pillows, twenty kids laid down like tiles. Shirts and sweaters in plastic garbage bins labeled by size. Shoes handed down. Tennis balls and kickballs stolen from one kid to the next. The only thing in that house that was all my own, that I never had to share with anyone, was a drawer in a dresser, twelve inches wide by fifteen inches deep. I measured it a million times. If you’re bad at math, that’s 1.25 square feet, which was really more than I needed because I didn’t have anything to keep inside.
    Saturdays were washing days: a pair of sister wives would fill a zinc tub with cold water, throw two boys in at a time, scrub their backsides with a brush on a stick, then fling them out. They changed the water every tenth boy. It would take all morning. But at least I wasn’t a girl. The girls used the bathroom according to a schedule that kept the plumbing on this side of chaos. On Saturdays they washed their hair in special sinks. The Prophet didn’t let them cut it, he said they’d need it when they got to heaven to wash their husbands’ feet. Some of the girls got nosebleeds from the weight of all that hair. A few complained about it hurting their backs or getting headaches, but most said nothing, at least not to me. When the girls washed their hair it sounded like a mop in a bucket. You can imagine the clogs in the drain. It took hours to dry—they’d lie on the picnic tables and spread their hair out around them. I loved to watch them from the window in my mom’s room. The girls looked beautiful like that, their clean hair fanned out like angels’ wings.
    Roland once asked if there was anything good about growing up in Mesadale, if I had one fond memory among all the bad. “One thing’s for sure,” I said. “You’re never alone.”
             
    I stood outside the house, looking up at my mom’s window. A roller shade was drawn halfway but I could see the aloe plant she grew on the sill. She used to break open its leaves and massage the clear liquid into her hands and throat. Sometimes I’d sit on her bed and watch her while I told her about school. Sometimes she’d squeeze a drop from the broken leaf into my palm and I’d stay with her until it had dried.
    I saw someone in my mom’s window, a dark shape pulling down the shade. They were all in the house, everyone, my brothers and sisters and all the wives, but I guess no one was coming out to say hello. Then Virginia shot out from the barn, running right for me and rolling over at my feet. She was thin and hot under her thick