Chapter 3
That summer, weeks before the tragedy, Brenton invented Wordsday, where Brenton’s every utterance was delivered in frustratingly long sentences and highbrow language. At first, I found it amusing, but it quickly wore off. I thought I might learn some interesting new vocabulary, but Brenton spoke so quickly that I missed most of what he said. My mother looked bewildered. My grandmother said he needed a good dose of military training. He kept it up for two weeks before the sheer maintenance of its routine was too much even for him to bear. They rang his psychiatrist. Ignore it, he said. The psychiatrist had suggested to my mother that people not react to his outrageous comments, as it was part of his attention seeking. He therefore had the luxury of his idiosyncrasies and no one t
