“Wake up, wake up!” I felt like my heart was being smashed again and again. What kind of 18th birthday surprise was so rude and annoying?
“Your father was arrested! Help pack up all his work materials. Move. Move.” My grandma’s curly hair looked like an explosion.
“Oh.” I sat on the edge of the bed, felt the phone under the pillow, and called my mum, “My grandma came by and knocked on my door like a crazy gorilla.”
“Why did she come to you?” I heard tires rolling and wind blowing at the other side of the phone.
“She said that Daddy was arrested. Was he really?”
“I don’t know. I will come back home later.” My mum and I were both calmed.
Then, my grandma gave me a big black package, “Don’t just sit still! Throw your dad’s computer and paper documents inside! Quick.”
If she wanted to make drama, then I had no choice but to follow. After packing, I saw my cousin was busy saying “calm down” to my grandma and dragged several packages outside the house. I sat in the room quietly and got prepared for a Zoom lesson. After a while, I heard the door open and so did my grandma. At the moment the door closed, my grandma’s steps and mouth both worked hard to release her anxiety by speaking and crying as loudly as she could.
My Zoom lesson began. Intermittently high pitch slipped into the door’s gap. From then on, I could not clearly hear a word either in Zoom or from outside. Suppose I was staying in a peaceful world, but I could not feel the peace. Instead, I perceived each piece of disorder, sharing the same environment with others outside my bedroom. My brain started to type every single word to repeat my grandma’s sentence “Your father was arrested.” Maybe my grandma mistakenly heard the message and my mother was scolding her.
“Let’s take a ten-minute break,” the lecturer said.
That was the most clear sentence I heard today. I did not have to doubt if the lecturer was making a joke and did not have to guess what would happen after the break. I loved such straightforward instruction.
I rushed out of the door to confirm the situation. My mum was walking back and forth on the balcony on a phone call. I went toward her and she noticed me. She slightly nodded her head and waved her hands to let me go back to my room. What did she mean? Was the nodding a yes to the arresting thing or yes to the crazy grandma thing?
The Zoom lesson continued. The lecturer seemed to speak faster than usual. The words coming from his mouth swiftly passed my ears from left to right. The words did not even spend a second in my brain. I tried another way to follow the lesson: read out the content on the slide. Within expectation, words remained to be blocked on the way to my brain. It seemed to be a sign from the brain, “I was overloaded today. Just think what you want to think even if it was chaos.”
“Dong dong dong,” suddenly a polite knocking was on the door.
“Please enter,” I answered.
“Sorry, I am here to gather some of your father's things.” A lady held a bunch of papers and a small square camera on her chest.
My heart jumped up, bumping against my throat. I stared at the computer screen and did not dare to peep at the lady. Soon, she left. Once she closed the door, I sighed lightly. What crimes would my father have committed? How many years did he need to stay in jail? Was he framed by his competitors? Would he be bullied by other criminals like on some TV shows? What about my tuition? …… Mountains of questions spilled out and occupied my mind. I subconsciously started hyperventilating.
“Thank you, bye bye.” Voices on Zoom stopped the questions in my mind.
I pressed my ear against my room’s door. The world outside became quiet. I opened the door little by little and gingerly walked out. My mum was sitting in the living room and scrolling her phone.
She saw me and said, “I ordered dinner just now. I will take a shower and have a nap later. If the food is delivered, eat it by yourself.” There was a sigh, like a powerless melody floating in the air, after each sentence she said.
I was going to ask something, both about my father and her. While the “why” was nearly squeezed out between my lips, my mum stood up. She did not look at me, lowered her head and walked toward her room, carrying her feelings and thoughts out of my view. I swallowed the “why” back to the throat. I looked out of the window: the sun had gone without leaving any colors, covering the sky with a pale grey hue. I did not believe that the sun just left selfishly today. It must leave something for me, maybe an orange sunset or the dark blue sky, so I waited and waited till the darkness thoroughly occupied the sky.
So that’s it? What came to me at last was darkness. No birthday gift even of a free sunset. Why did I have to be tortured in this way today?
Not much later, I took a shower. The hot air wrapped around my face. The warmth melted my heart gradually so that I started to sense the feeling: the fact that he was going to quit my life was like a rope tightly tying up my heart circle after circle, forcing me to accept the loss. The tears blurred my eyesight and mind. I had to drench my face with water to calm myself. Luckily, I still had a space to bury the sadness. When I finished, I swiped my face, and stared at the mirror.
“You have no backup anymore.” The timid heart got a sober warning. Holding the warning, I started my real grown-up adventure.