The Turner Girls: proper noun.

There are five. All girls. But you already knew that, right? Everyone knows that. And, apparently, we all look “exactly alike.” So much, in fact, that now it doesn’t surprise me when a stranger on the street recognizes me as such. As a “Turner Girl.” I guess if you know one, you know them all. Ah, but therein lies the question. Do you know one? Do you know them all? I doubt it. Very few have seen the gears, levers, and screws that are The Turner Family.
There’s the screaming for one. Always Screaming. Screaming with anger, screaming with laughter, screaming just to hear your voice echo down the hallway. But screaming, is the common (and preferred) form of communication.
“It’s time for dinner!”
“You’re wearing my shirt!”
“Rebecca did it!”
“Madelyn used it last!”
In a house of seven, screaming is the only way your voice is going to get heard. And how appropriately absurd that this form of communication, so typically geared toward anger, should be our everyday form of interaction. Because damn-do we get angry. I’ve never had more horrible and terrible things said to me than at home. But there it is, I called it home.
The bond between sisters is internal and eternal. It is imperishable and it is binding. And all the mean things that have been said to me, all the pinches and scratches, have all been trumped by the humor, loyalty, and love that I find refuge in these four girls. I know each one. I know them all.