Restless

I had never seen my father behave the way he behaved that night. Frantic desperation vibrated through his fingertips and tone of voice. He rushed around the house, muttering to himself and throwing prized possessions on the floor in search of something apparently far more important. When Tony, my younger brother, or I asked what was wrong, he merely held up his hand and murmured a cold, "Later."

I looked down to Tony and took his hand, assuring him that everything would be alright, despite the thudding panic of my own thoughts. Dad never left us in the dark about anything, yet a looming cloud of black terror surrounded our small home with such a potency my young, ten-year-old mind had never begun to imagine.

Finally, my father found a large envelope behind a painting that had been precariously placed on the cream-colored wall of the living room, and he stuffed it into my backpack, taking my brother and I roughly by the shoulders and ushering us out of the house. "C'mon, kids, we've gotta go away for a while," he briskly explained, unlocking the car and helping Tony into the backseat.

I, being the older child, was privileged to sit beside Dad in the passenger's seat, and so I threw my backpack on the floor of the car and hopped up into the seat, quickly situating myself and buckling my seatbelt. My father rushed to the driver's side after Tony was secure, turned on the car, and then jolted backward out of the driveway, which caused my brother and I to lurch forward and the seatbelts to catch our small bodies from flying out of the seats. The car zoomed out of the neighborhood, throwing us headfirst into the proverbial shadow and uncertainty of night.