We assemble around the kitchen table as if we have random family meetings all the time, as if the very idea of a family meeting doesn't send at least half of the people present into a panicked frenzy. I sit still, gazing out the window; stiff. My mother is next to me, my father standing somewhere close behind me; I'm glad I don't have to look at either of them. My grandmom's on the other side of the table but she's off to the side so I don't have to look at her either. This calms me.

My eyes slide out of focus and I bring them back. They slide out of focus again. I hear my dad inhale loudly. (People seem to breathe louder right before they speak, or maybe I'm just hyper-aware; especially in situations - such as family meetings - that always seem to occur in close proximity to my life being threatened.) I wince.

He calls my little brother's name.

This both calms and slightly upsets me. It calms me because I actually know what this meeting is about. Because I know it has to do with my brother more than with me. Because I know this isn't just an extremely clever trick used to corner me. It upsets me because I don't know how my brother is going to react.

He enters, sits at the head of the table closest to mom and grandmom, furthest away from dad. I'm somewhere in the middle. I find this amusing. The very issue we're sitting here to address is how my brother is, and has been for some time now, a chronic liar. And he believes he can walk all over my mother and grandmom the most, me a bit less, and my dad the least. He knows that casting pitiful glances at my father and I will have no effect. Thus: his choice of seat. He has no idea his mother was the one that came up with the idea for the punishment; that my dad was the one that called the meaning to give him another chance, a warning before we kill him off.

My parents take turns explaining the punishment. My mother yells and repeats the same things over and over again. Sometimes she doesn't even bother to reword the phrases. My dad's statements are blunt and short. He knows how to hurt while including the smallest amount of emotion possible. My grandmom traces patterns on the table cloth with her finger. She reminds me of a little kid. I can tell she's seen too much of this family, too much to ever leave.

I watch my brother's eyes. In the beginning he confidently looked each person in the eye while they spoke. After a while it started to wear on him and he stared at my mom, since she usually had the floor. I can tell what bugs him; his eyes wander a few inches to the right of my mom's face. That's when I step in and wrench them back into the problem. My interjections are venomous. I recognize that my parents are going easy on him and this angers me. I spit bullets, brutally taking the obvious and shoving it in his face. Then I retreat back into my mind and continue to seek out loop holes and ways to circumvent the rules to make my brother's new life more enjoyable.

It isn't until the end that he starts crying.

"This is your warning"

The group breaks ups. We all retreat back to our little corners of the house, our spots of comfort for the moment, where we don't have to interact with each other.