The TV in Mia's living room flickered quietly. It was late, and Mia's mother would be sleeping in the next room.

"Reports continue of unexplained behavior in the residents of the area surrounding the crash site of the international space station earlier this evening," the reporter droned. "While there is no official word on the cause of these phenomenon, current speculation pins post-traumatic stress disorder as the culprit. However, triage centers set up around the area have been overwhelmed with victims of unexplained injuries, some victims claiming to have been nowhere near the site of the accident."

From the kitchen, the front door opened, and a few moments later, closed. Mia briefly glanced at the time: one thirty in the morning. In from the kitchen stumbled her dad. The smell of alcohol reached her even from her spot on the couch.

"Late night," she muttered, clicking the power button on the remote control and silencing the reporter, who had been interviewing a man whose arm had supposedly broken itself as he was reaching for a glass on a high shelf. "Mom was asking where you were."

"Yeah, well she can mind her own business," he mumbled, making for the bedroom door where he'd surely wake her.

"She's your wife, dad. It is her business."

"Don't talk back to me," he warned, a little louder than she'd have liked. "It's my business where I go, not hers, and not yours."

"Can you keep it down? She's sleeping." Mia stood up and started for her room, but the damage had been done.

"Steve?" mumbled Mia's mom, emerging from their room looking tired, as though she hadn't been sleeping at all. "Where have you been? What time is it?"

"What is it with you two being so nosy? If it makes so much of a difference, I was at the bar."

"Yeah, that much is obvious," Mia quipped, taking advantage, as she often did, of her dad's weakened thought capacity to get one up on him.

"And I've had about enough of your smart-ass comments," Steve snapped, pointing at his daughter. "You go on to bed before you get what's coming to you."

"Steve, that's not really necessary," Margret mumbled. "I'm sure she was just worr--"

"Was I asking you?" Steve interrupted. "No, I don't think I was, so shut up."

"Don't tell her to shut up!" These conversations between the Chadure family were unfortunately common.

"I'll tell her whatever the fuck I want!" responded Steve's twisted logic.

"Right, because she's your wife, and this is your house, and your rules, and your money, and your everything, right?" Mia shot back, defending her mother, who for some reason refused to defend herself. "Newsflash, chief, all this bullshit that's ripping us apart? That would be your dad living out there," she jabbed a finger in the direction of the large room adjoining the garage, "leeching off our home,--"

"--Shut your mouth right now!--"

"--And that'd be your attitude and how you treat your family--"

"--Girl shut it or so help me god..--"

"--and the fact that you are a failure of a man who can't keep himself out of a bar long enough to bring home a decent earning for his family!"

A cold, piercing silence filled the room. Margret was doing the best she could to keep from crying, and Steve did the best he could to stare down his daughter, who was determinedly glaring daggers back at him.

"Get out of my house," he decided. "You get out, and you don't come back until you can appreciate everything I do for you, you brat."

"No, Steve, please--"

That was usually how the conversations ended. Margret, in a final plea to her husband to see some reason, was hit in the face by the back of his hand.

"Don't you hit her--" Mia shouted as her mother dropped to her knees, clutching her cheek and sobbing.

"Get out of my house!" Steve grabbed the door handle and, after a few failed attempts at unsticking the door, threw it open and pointed outside. "Get out and I don't want to see your face until you learn some appreciation!"

Mia was now disgusted. Her father, the chauvinist drunk of the century, and her mother, the queen of pushovers, stared with varying expressions at her.

"Go!"