Don’t Go

Premonition

     We had a family dinner every Sunday night. As family dinners go, this particular one was kind of nice. My brother was behaving, which my Dad liked to say, was about as rare as hen’s teeth. Mom and Dad were laughing and joking. Maybe I just remember that part of the night being better than it was, but the vibe was just a little bit different than usual. We were sitting around the table, eating and talking, nibbling on the scraps of our dinner that had long passed. It felt like no one wanted the night to end. It was so rare that we all had such a good time together. Dad would have to leave soon; he worked the night shift as a Security Officer. Our Sunday night dinners were a way for him to spend some time with us before he started his long work week, and since he usually slept through the afternoon we didn’t get to see him very much. Tonight he would be doing a shift at the local mall. He said he spent most of the night in his car listening to the radio when he had to work the mall.

Things were starting to wind down when I looked over at Dad to see if he was going to start getting ready for work, and as I did I got this terrible feeling; I knew, absolutely knew for sure, that something bad was going to happen to him at work that night. 

I was faintly aware of the conversations going on around me, but I was just quietly sitting there. At first I tried to tell myself that I was being silly. How many times had I had a feeling that was wrong.  Eventually Mom looked over at me and she must have been able to tell something was up, “Sweetie, is something wrong, are you feeling okay?”

My voice cracked when I responded, “Hey Dad, could you stay home from work tonight?” I tried to smile, but couldn’t. 

Mom gave me an inquisitive look, but Dad answered, “I wish honey, but no. I'm sure there’s no one to cover my shift.”

Mom looked over at Dad and laughed, “You’ll learn that, when you become an adult and have responsibilities, you can’t just call off for no reason.”

Being talked down to me made me feel that my concerns were being disregarded, but I couldn’t let them ignore me, it felt too important,“Dad, please.”

Everyone was silent now, looking at me. 

He paused and cleared his throat and looked at me, clearly concerned, “Becks, is something up?”

I wish that he could have felt what I was feeling, so that he could have understood without me having to say it out loud, “Dad, I have a bad feeling, could you please not go to work tonight?”

Dad shifted a little in his chair and looked over at Mom; they looked like they were communicating telepathically. 

My little brother Aiden was glaring at me, “Becks, stop being a baby.” I wanted to yell at him, but I felt too worried, too scared. He seemed sorry that he said it, and I think that he was getting worried too. 

“Sweetie, your Dad is going to be fine. He’s been doing this for a long time and he can handle sleeping in his nice warm car all night.” She looked over at my Dad and smiled, he laughed and took her hand in his,

“Your Mom’s right honey, I’ll be fine, I promise.”

      “Dad! You don’t understand! You can’t go to work tonight!” I sounded crazy, I knew it, and it didn’t matter. I had to find a way to stop my Dad from going to work. 

“Dad, I’m begging you. I have a bad feeling, you can’t go!”

There was an uncomfortable silence, and I couldn’t stand it. 

“Dad, please. Is it worth the risk? You don’t believe me, but if I’m right, even if it is a 1 in a million chance, isn’t it worth it to have an extra night off for the first time in forever and not risk it?” He looked down at the table, twirling his spoon around his plate with his free hand, “Okay, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll call Carl and ask for the night off, okay?” Carl, Dad’s boss, was a nice guy. I thought that there was a good chance that Carl would give him the night off. 

“Thank you, Dad. Make sure he knows it’s important, okay?”

“Sure sweetie.” He smiled lovingly and got up and left the room to go call Carl. My Mom seemed perturbed. “Sweetie, you’re too old to be doing this sort of thing.” She laughed a little, and it hurt me deep in my chest. I had to fight to hold back tears. 

     “Dad is always fine, why are you worried?” I could tell that Aiden was getting angry, he was too young to understand why I had ruined the evening. I wanted to tell him to forget what I said and to not worry, but I felt like that would have been a lie. 

I heard footsteps, Dad walking back to the table, “Okay sweetie, I talked to Carl. I do have to go in tonight. A couple of other guys already called off.”

     That was it. Dad went to get ready for work. Before he walked out the door, I hugged him tightly and told him that I loved him, and did my best to convey to him that he needed to be careful. I couldn’t hold my tears at that last moment, and he saw me cry a little. He smiled at me, and told me that he loved me too, and of course that he would be careful.

Just a little after 5:15am I was woken up by voices. The police were in our front hall, talking to Mom and she was nodding along as they spoke. She wasn’t crying or freaking out. I went down stairs and stood beside her. She gave me a small smile.  I thought she looked scared. 

“Ma’am, if we could come in for a moment, I can explain.”

“Of course, yes, I’m sorry, please come in. Can I get you anything?”

The officer smiled, “No ma’am. Thank you.”

We all walked into the living room and my Mom and I sat down on the couch, while the officers remained standing. 

“As I was saying, he was involved an incident. There was a break-in at the mall and he suffered a minor injury that he has already been treated for.”

Adrenaline ran through my body, and I felt both relief and anxiety, “Is he going to be okay?”

“Yes ma’am, the injury was very minor. However, there was an incident.”

He didn’t seem to want to give us any more detail.

Mom looked back and forth between the two policemen, “What is it?”

The other officer, a taller, younger man, stepped forward and spoke; “There were two intruders. One of them was involved in an altercation with your father, while the other was running out of the mall and, we believe, trying to run away. After your father was able to free himself from the first person he fired upon the second.”

“Oh my God!” My Mom was starting to cry. “Is the person okay?”

The officers looked at each other for a moment and then the first officer spoke again, “No ma’am, he’s dead.”

“But, he did the right thing, right? He shot the bad guy!?” Why was she asking them if he did the right thing? Of course he did the right thing!

“We are only here to inform you that your Husband has been taken into custody. Our Captain asked us to deliver the news to you personally due to the sensitive nature of the crime.”

     I was frustrated with how long it was taking them to explain, “What is sensitive about the nature of someone attacking a security guard and breaking into a mall?” I felt like I had minimized the severity of it in defense of my Dad, but I needed the answer.

The first officer looked like he was going to say something but then thought better of it, then the second, taller officer, spoke again, “He shot a kid, an 11 year old boy.”

     Things got crazy after that night. There were investigations into Dad’s work history, I think to try and find any mistakes he had ever made. Reporters were constantly asking my brother and I if Dad had ever threatened us with violence. Of course he hadn’t, but we’d been told not to answer any of their questions. 

After a while, Dad was bailed out and got to come back home, but things were weird. He seemed like he was mad all of the time. Not long after he got home, we sold our house and moved into an apartment. There wasn’t enough room for all of us, but it didn’t seem important or we just didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to care at that point. Our priorities had shifted, and in a way we were just trying to survive. The trial was quick. Everyone was just going through the motions, I think. We all knew that if he’d shot a grown man, none of this would have happened. 

 On the third day, the jury deliberated. We were all sitting quietly and waiting. It was almost lunch time when Dad turned to me and asked, “What do you think, kiddo, got a premonition for me?”

There was a tear in my eye when I replied, “I have a bad feeling.”