Educated

devastating thing, that left Mother in tears more nights than not. These rages
changed, and worsened, as his physical strength improved, and I found
myself cleaning the toilet every morning, knowing my head might be inside it
before lunch. Mother said I was the only one who could calm him, and I
persuaded myself that that was true. Who better? I thought. He doesn’t affect
me.
Reflecting on it now, I’m not sure the injury changed him that much, but I
convinced myself that it had, and that any cruelty on his part was entirely
new. I can read my journals from this period and trace the evolution—of a
young girl rewriting her history. In the reality she constructed for herself
nothing had been wrong before her brother fell off that pallet. I wish I had my
best friend back, she wrote. Before his injury, I never got hurt at all.