SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue 1 - Journal - Page 71
SINE QUA NON
FIRST PLACE WINNER — CREATIVE PROSE
Teresa Milbrodt
The Hedgehog
When I walk back to the living room my brother is gone, there's just the hedgehog on
the couch.
“God,” I say. “You don't have to throw a fit. I'm still not giving you money.” I thought
he was out of his pouty phase. Guess not.
“Don't shit on anything,” I say as the hedgehog noses a cushion and gives me a withering
look like it wouldn't imagine doing that. Whenever I think about asking my brother if he
might like to move in with us, he pulls something like this.
“It's my turn to make dinner for everyone in the co-op. You can help if you want to be
civil.” I return to the kitchen. It's a day I need my cane for balance, a day my brother doesn't
want to be civil, he wants to be a hedgehog. I bang the cupboard doors so he knows I'm
pissed. With Mom and Dad gone he's the only blood relation I have, and on bad knee days
I think it would be good to have him closer, but then I remember his snits. I moved into
the co-op apartment complex so I could live with people who were less likely to throw spiny
tantrums.
I'm getting the largest pot out of the cupboard when Isobel slams in the side door and
shows me her latest math test with the gold star. I kiss her forehead.
“Is Uncle Ernie here?” she asks. Must have seen his car outside.
“He's in the living room being a hedgehog,” I say. “Play gentle.” She's already bounding
toward the couch.
“This is so much better than when he was a raccoon,” she says.
I roll my eyes. That's my brother. Cute little asshole. I haven't heard from him in
months, then he's on the front step asking for a hundred bucks. I gave him a can of pop, said
nothing doing, and he sat on the couch and curled into himself. He's a very good cook, but
not in hedgehog form.
***
When we were ten and seven, Ernie didn't speak to me for a week when I wouldn't let
him be partners in my second Kool-Aid stand of the summer. The first time he drank all the
product so I didn't have anything to sell, then he bounded up and down the street sticking
out his purple tongue at people.
When we were twenty-five and twenty-two, Ernie didn't speak to me for two months
when he found out I was having a kid and not marrying her father. He said it was a sure way
to raise a child in poverty, but he's always asking me for money, not the other way around.
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