"Yes, and that street over there? It's called Darcy Street. I used to walk that street every day to the meat shop. I'd work there from after school until ten o'clock, then I'd do homework. You kids complain now with no reason. It makes me laugh sometimes."

I've heard this story more times than I can count on my hands and feet, but this time it is different. I suddenly become aware that we are, in fact, in Delaware. Claymont, Delaware: a shit-hole of a town. We're eating at some silly restaurant, the name of which I don't care to repeat. It's some mexican word, the name of the mexican owners probably-I assume the cooks in the back are the owners. It is the closest Claymont has to a vegetarian option.

I watch my little brother, who is now 15 years old, staring foward at his potatoes, a slight grin on his face. It's the same grin I am wearing, the one that tells our father that we are aware of the story he is relaying, but enjoy hearing it for the hundredth time anyway. My brother looks up from his plate, and sneaks a glance in at me while our father is looking out the window, commenting on the ashes and rubble which were once the only bowling alley in town. He would drink beer there, he tells us. I can't help but smile wider when I see the glance. We love this, with all of our hearts. I can't imagine any other place than this piece of shit town with nothing left but some dirty fucking factories.

It is one of those towns: a factory town. I've heard of them, but never really connected with one. My father's father, here in Claymont, worked for one of the factories. He worked all the time. His two leisure activities were his family and his photography. He had to give up his photography due to money problems. He died of cancer, due in part to the work he did. My father worked constantly while young, as he continually mentions. I look at my cell phone and briefly become angry with myself. I wonder if it's simply a product of change that is natural. I decide I would feel rotten either way.

My father is wearing his fighting blue hens sweatshirt. From college. From college here in Delaware.

My brother looks up at me again, but this glance, although a knowing secret as the last, is neither amused nor ironic. He looks beaten and sad, but I know it is really a look of relief. He, like me, wishes the other sibling could've been here. We know something, and we know what it means.

We need this. More than most things.

He breaks into another opening line: "The pool is down there, guys. We would go there every day in the summer." I begin to laugh. I already know about the drowning they had one summer, and the cute lifeguard.