Mom’s illness shows itself in the strangest ways. It could be in her struggle to get up in the morning, her bones locking up in protest, or in her fickle lungs.
On the morning of our flight from Grenada to Miami, Mom’s illness appeared with a hand around her reality, warping and wrestling her stability until she could barely stand. Her newest doctor forbade her from flying, so our five-day family vacation became a daddy-daughter trip two hours before departure.
I think Dad and I are close. We don’t really hug or have dinner dates, but he says “I love you” back every time, even if he’s in a business meeting. I share his passion for music, his practical logic, and his sharp tongue, so we’ve never really had too many disagreements. Traveling with him is easy because it is like traveling by myself, but safely and with fewer bills to pay.
On our last shopping day, I found myself perusing with my mother in my mind. She wasn’t there, but she followed me into every store I browsed. I know what she likes and what she thinks I should like, and while I share my father’s logic, I do not share his courage. I spent a lot of time weighing purchases she would not approve of, one of which was a pair of headphones in a generic tech store. Dad tried to show me how to bargain, but I could only feel Mom’s embarrassment at his “cheap” ways.
Then we heard the screams.
I don’t live in the US, but I’m familiar with the concept of shopping malls having mini rides like carousels and play parks. So when a wave of exclamation came rollercoastering through the mall, I dismissed it with the image of a slow-moving children’s train, complete with Thomas the Tank Engine’s moon-faced smile.
The salesman sputtered something in Spanish, but I didn’t have enough time to delve into my high-school vocabulary before my dad shoved me behind the counter.
It was a blur of tiles, frantic screams, and chaotic stampeding. Like wildfire sweeping through dry grass, panic ran rampant through all of us. Everything was moving too quickly and I was scrambling to keep up. Panicked gibberish pierced through the sound of my own heartbeat as I tried to keep track of the whirring background. I couldn’t understand anything, except for Dad’s voice calling out to me.
My heart hit the ground before my knees did. I cannot outrun a gun, I thought, as I crawled into the darkness of the storeroom. No one said anything about a gun, but I knew the world that I lived in all too well. My knees stung as we crowded between the shelves. The swarm of terror rumbled past and within seconds, the mall corridor was silent.
It was like muscle memory; the woman next to me prayed quietly in her native tongue, and a mother nestled her little daughter’s face in her neck. The salesman muttered lowly into his cell phone, and no one dared to move. Blue and white holograph lights danced off their panic-contoured expressions through the dips of the blackout curtain.
Dad was not with us.
Rattling metal and anxious murmurs filled the storeroom, suffocating us with unease. With numb hands, I found a way to type a quick message into our family chat.
THERES A SHOO TING. WE R HIDING IN BACK OF A STORE
Then I heard Dad somewhere, in the open silence.
“Ari! Where is my daughter?” he demanded.
I don’t know the protocol for active shooter scares, but I am almost 100% certain you do not call out to each other without knowing where said shooter is. I cowered into the shelf of instant printers, refusing to answer him, willing him to stop alerting everyone where we were.
Check your messages! I urged him mentally.
As in sync as we were, he did not receive my signal. Instead, the curtain yanked open, and my father’s flushed face glowed in the blue light.
“Christ!” he spat, before turning back out into the open.
I think he might have meant “Thank Christ you’re okay!” but couldn’t find the other words in his adrenaline-muddled brain.
When I met up with my friend Melissa for lunch, just a week after the trip, she raved about my “main character” energy. She envies my crazy stories: how I was left on hold by the police during a workplace robbery, how one of my recent flights turned into a two-hour prayer group as we struggled to land through a storm, and now, how I stumbled in and out of a false alarm shooting.
She’s younger than me, and I know she means it as a compliment, but I cringe. When I think of how quickly the panic spread, and how naturally we all hid and held breaths, I know there’s nothing special about events like these anymore. I don’t scold her about it the way that I should, but while she’s reading the menu, I say a little prayer, hoping she never has to find that out.