I think my mother likes the dog better than me, even though I've never pooped on her Oriental carpet, dragged her facedown on a leash because I couldn't resist sniffing the dog's butt that just went by, or even left bales of dog hair all over the house for her to vacuum up.

She gets mad at the dog, don't get me wrong. But after five minutes, she's back to talking baby talk to her and petting her behind the ears.

"Sorry Ah peed on the rug, Momma," Rosie says. "Ah jes couldn't hold it any longer."

That's not the dog talking, of course, but my mother talking for Rosie in a Texas drawl. Mom has these kinds of conversations with the dog every day.

"That's okay, Rosie," she tells the dog as she is on her knees, sopping up the latest accident with paper towels. "I should have let you out earlier."

"Ah would've been happy to have taken you for a walk, Momma! Ah'm always happy to do that."

"I know, Rosie." Mom stops cleaning for a brief moment to go over to give the offending mutt a big hug. Rosie lies on the sofa and receives the hug, as a queen deigning to let one of her subjects touch her. It's that bad, how she has Mom wrapped around her paw.

I wish Mom was like that with me. She holds grudges for days when I leave a mess—and by mess I mean I forget to put things away or I don't change the toilet paper roll when it's empty. Or the big one: my room!

"Benjamin, I thought I told you to do something about your room!" she screams from the upstairs landing. I can hear her all the way down into the basement, where I'm trying to concentrate on my PlayStation Call of Duty game.

"I did, Mom," I yell back as I punch the control buttons. "I shut the door. That's what you asked me to do."

"This mess is beyond keeping the door shut! It smells in here. Agh! There's dog poop on your rug!" By this time, she's screaming as though she discovered nuclear waste emitting from my room. "Benjamin! Get up here! Now!"

Okay, so I don't always keep the door to my bedroom shut. But it's not my fault a dog pooped in my room. The dog is her responsibility.

Mom sighs a lot lately, which makes me sigh harder back at her. She's at that age now—middle age, that is—when her assets are no longer her looks. I'm trying to be objective here even though she is my mother, but it's pretty safe to say that she was pretty back in her day. Gorgeous? No, but pretty enough to get by on looks. She still looks good for her age; she's not in great shape, but she's sturdy, where she can walk the dogs a mile or two a couple of times a day. She dyes her hair its original light chestnut brown. She complains that her eyelids are sagging, but not when she's got her eyebrows raised and angry blue eyes are boring into me.

So now her assets lie in this stupid house. Along with her obsessions about dogs and Johnny's autism, she's been obsessed with every house we've lived in, from the one in Oakwood, Texas, to the one in Scarborough, New Jersey, to this latest edition in Adele, Virginia. Through the years, she's spent more time painting, hanging curtains, putting up pictures, and cleaning the house than on anything in which I was ever involved.

As I climb the stairs, she greets me with a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle. She brushes away the strands of hair that fall on her face with the hand that holds the spray bottle. She has that haircut that's short in the back and long in the front, and her hair often falls in her face, creating the effect of one who is constantly being put upon—in other words, her martyr look.

"Be sure to get it all up." She barks her orders. "Use the pet spray, and make sure it soaks in—"

"Okay, Mom, I will!" I say through gritted teeth. "I can't wait to get out of this house!"

"Any time you're ready!" Mom smiles sarcastically.

By this time, Elizabeth has come out of her bedroom, which she has turned into a cocoon for the past couple of months. It's late in the morning, almost noon. I don't hold it against her that she gets up so late; after all, days and nights get mixed up after a few weeks into the summer. Plus, she's got to rest up for her freshman year.

"What's going on?" Elizabeth asks through a yawn, stretching her dancer's arms and legs as she steps into the hallway.

"Rosie pooped in Benjamin's room," Mom says, as though it's my fault.

"She's been doing that a lot lately," Elizabeth says. "Are you all right, Rosie?"

"Mah pelvic flo-ahrisn't what it used to be," Mom says, channeling the dog's thoughts. Mom and Elizabeth have these conversations on a regular basis. It's their strange way of communicating. I find it annoying. The real Rosie is downstairs, lying leisurely in the sunroom with Johnny. That's his usual spot in the house, right off the kitchen but away enough from the rest of the house and, thus, "from too much stimulation."

"What's a pelvic floor?" Elizabeth asks in a loud whisper. "Is that the muscles surrounding your bladder, vagina, and uterus?"

"You got it, sweet thang!" Mom smiles at her as she does her Rosie voice. "Mah human puppies are so smart!"

"Rosie obviously sees your room as a place to relieve herself," Mom says, returning her attention to me. "And why wouldn't she? She probably smells rotting food in here like apple cores, and damp towels that aren't hung up in the bathroom but lying on the floor so that bacteria grows—"

"Okay, Mom, I get the idea!" I snap. Everything she says is true, and I don't have any defense except to say I'll do better next time.

"Smells only a dog could love." She finishes her lecture with a wan smile. "Rosie can't help it. She's a dog."

That seventy-pound brown shepherd mutt is her baby, the fourth child she and Dad wished they had and regretted they never did, being worried that another child would end up autistic like Johnny. I was already born before they found out about Johnny. Elizabeth, my younger sister by two years, turned out okay, but they were pushing their luck. Elizabeth was the longed-for girl. She's like Mom; she loves the dog like it's her sister.

Mom exits downstairs, thank God. She leaves Elizabeth standing in my bedroom doorway. "You need help?" she asks.

"Just get Mom off my back," I say as I press the paper towels into the offending spot. "It's something, isn't it—that she gets on my back all the time and yet dotes on Johnny and Rosie, who do nothing?"

Next thing I know, Mom's yelling at me to come downstairs. "Now!"

When I get down to the kitchen, she and Elizabeth are giving me dirty looks. "How can you think that way?" Mom asks me.

"What way?"

"You said Johnny and Rosie are useless." She looks at me in an accusatory manner.

"I didn't say that! Elizabeth, you're such a tattletale!"

"How can I be a tattletale if you didn't say it?" she asks triumphantly, like a cop who just got the suspect to confess.

"I said Rosie and Johnny don't do any work around here. Besides"—I tilt my head—"Rosie and Johnny don't look too upset." I look over at Rosie and Johnny, who are still in the sunroom. Rosie is lying on the rug next to the windows, resting her chin on her paw. Johnny is staring out into space, making oohing noises.

Mom and Elizabeth look at me as if I just grew a large boil on my face.

"You're complaining about Johnny and Rosie not pulling their weight, huh?" Mom glances at me with a look of disbelief mixed with disappointment. "A dog in her golden years and a boy with autism who does everything he is able to do around here—"

"He sorts silverware and folds his shirts and shorts twenty times before putting them oh so neatly in their correct drawers! He's got OCD for God's sake!"

"He uses what he has, Benjamin." Mom shakes her head at me, as though I am still a kid. "And poor you, you're a wrestler, you're an honor student, but ask you to do some work around here?" She gives a dramatic roll of the head and eyes, to which I just smirk back at her.

"Damn it, that's not what I meant!" How can I explain that I'd like to get a little of the same positive attention they get without sounding like I'm feeling sorry for myself? "Just forget what I said," I say, as a way of exiting back to the basement.

"Why don't we put Rosie to work, then," Mom counters. "Get the leash. She's taking you for a long walk."

"She doesn't like me taking her for walks," I protest. "When I try to take her, she pulls away from me, like she doesn't want to go. She only wants you or Dad to walk her."

"Take charge of her," Mom says, like it's so easy. "This will be good for you to teach me how to get an animal who's stubborn to be compliant." Before I know it, she gets the leash from the mudroom and hands it to me to put on Rosie.

"Fine." I give her an angry look. "I'm glad to get out of here."

Mom stands in the kitchen with her arms folded. "Make sure you get some treats and plastic bags to pick up her poop."

As if I haven't done enough of that already.

I'm banished from the house, while Elizabeth—I hate her so much sometimes—goes to the fridge to search for a late breakfast and Mom goes over to sit with Johnny to start him up on his iPad autism apps. That's her way of keeping him "engaged"—that and having him listen to music on his iPod.

"Tell me what you want, Johnny," she says in a loud voice.

"Use your words."

"Beatles. Bea-tles!" He sounds like Frankenstein, with words coming out artificially.

"Okay, Beatles." Mom gets over one hurdle. "Which song do you want to listen to?" Johnny's response comes at a snail's pace. "Johnny, which song?"

"Help!" he says finally. "Help!"

"Okay, Johnny. Help! I need somebody." Mom sings the first lines of the song as she adjusts his iPod. "Here you go. Good using your words!"

"I can't wait to get out of this damn place," I mutter to myself as I step out the side door by the garage. I head out of the driveway, making a left toward the older part of our neighborhood, where the trees are taller and fuller and there's more shade. After all the hot air I got from my mother, at least I can be cool for the next hour.

Life is pretty bad when you are jealous of a dog and an autistic kid whose only talents are singing bits of Beatles songs and other songs he's heard on the radio and sitting on the couch all day.

To be honest, I love Rosie too—I mean, as much as a person can have love for a dog, when they remember it is a dog, after all, and not a person. I'm even happy to say I was the one who named her. I was glad Mom picked my choice. The name Rosie means "happy"—you know, as in looking at life through rose-colored glasses—that kind of rosy. And that's exactly what Rosie turned out to be: a dog who is full of energy, eager to please, and happy. That's why everyone loves her—even I do, although I get jealous of her.

But Johnny? He's another story. He's not easy to love, and I'm just being honest. He makes these noises, like grunts and growls, like he's an animal, on top of the singing. Johnny's singing embarrasses me. Mom thinks it's his way of communicating, but she's dreaming.

One time we were in Target—this is so typical—and he started singing this Lynyrd Skynyrd song, "I'm a simpu-ul, ki-ind of ma-an," really loud. And when Johnny sings it, the words take on a whole different meaning.

"Shut up, Johnny!" I snapped at him, and of course that triggered Mom's usual response of "It's okay, Benjamin. People aren't looking."

But of course they stared. "Great, Johnny," I said through gritted teeth. "Tell the world you're retarded!"

"Benjamin!" Mom said angrily. "You know we don't say that word!"

I just wanted to disappear. "I'll go wait in the car," I told her.

"You'll do no such thing!" Mom said. "We're almost finished shopping anyway." When we got back in the car, she tried to be sympathetic toward me. She sat for a few moments without putting the key in the ignition. I sat stoically, knowing this was going to be a "life lesson" moment.

"Benjamin," she started out quietly, "I used to get embarrassed about so many things. I was always afraid of what people thought of me until I took acting classes. Then people told me how good I was at acting, and I took that as a sign that I should follow my dream and become an actress. So I went to New York. At least I met your father there." She smiled wistfully. "But even though I didn't make it as an actress, I learned a valuable lesson: don't let little things embarrass you. And everything Johnny does is little. Okay?" She looked at me with a warm, sympathetic smile before she started the car.

"Sure, Mom," I answered, unconvinced. "I won't let what other people think bother me."

That was years ago. Nothing has changed. I can't help how I think. I care about how people see me.

So far, this summer has just been a series of reminders of just what a loser I am. I don't fit in any better than I did when we had just moved here two years ago, when Dad got a job at the Department of Treasury. He thought it would mean some stability, working for the government. I guess after the stress of working on Wall Street, he could use that.

But for me, everything else in my life is a mess, or to put it more accurately, it's offtrack, like gears on a bicycle when the chain is not in the right cog. I don't fit in anywhere with anyone, especially with girls. It could be because I live in this stupid, nowhere place of Adele, Virginia, a place not close enough to DC to be considered posh, but close enough for people to commute. Adele is a way station; there are a lot of military and government contractors here. There are some locals, but most people leave after a few years. I intend to be one of those people.

But I can't leave here a failure. I need to get a reasonably hot-looking girlfriend and make the guys on the wrestling team respect me. Except for Blake Barker. I don't want him to respect me. I want him to fear me. Blake is not a big guy; in fact, he's kind of a little twerp, but he makes up for it by being a big asshole. I hate the guys on the team who use wrestling as a means to make themselves out to be tough guys instead of focusing on the wrestling. Wrestling as a sport needs more respect than that. That's another thing I want to do someday: be a promoter for my sport. Maybe I can be an agent or talent scout for MMA or something.

These are not easy goals, I admit, but they are attainable. When I say "hot-looking girlfriend," I just mean a girl who's attractive enough to make the other guys jealous. I know I don't have what it takes to get a Kate Upton look-alike. I know my limitations, like my round head, which makes me look like Charlie Brown. I hate to admit it, but it's true. Blake first started calling me Roundhead in our freshman year. I tried not to let it show that it bothered me, but I must have failed because he kept calling me that the rest of the year.

That first time he called me Roundhead and Charlie Brown, it came out of the blue. I was beating him pretty badly at practice (I was a good ten pounds on him back then), and that was how he decided to get under my skin, by calling attention to my head. But was it true? Did my head have anything to do with my being unable to get a date?

I wanted to get Mom's opinion in the car ride after practice. The easiest time for us to talk is in her car. She still drives the same Toyota Highlander she and Dad bought in New Jersey almost seven years ago. ("I'll still be driving this car until Rosie's gone," she says.) It's really Rosie's car, with all of her dog hair and bite marks left on the back of the seats. When we first got the car, Rosie was so excited she jumped up in the cargo area and twirled herself around several times, letting everyone know that was her part of the car.

But it's also a place where I can get most of Mom's attention, at least when she's not listening to her talk radio shows.

"Some people say I have a really round head," I told Mom as a way of starting a conversation as we headed back home. "They say it's like a ball!"

"Your head isn't round!" Mom assured me. "It's a handsome head. You remind me of Mikhail Baryshnikov. He has a cute boyish face too, and he was a handsome ballet dancer who was real popular when I was about your age."

"Great. I resemble a ballet dancer. How gay. Thanks, Mom."

"Baryshnikov was a real ladies' man!" she protested. "And he was one of Carrie Bradshaw's boyfriends in Sex and the City."