On My 18th Birthday, My Parents Drove Me to the Ai…

My mother stood beside him with her purse tucked under her arm. “Where are we going?” I asked. My father opened the door.

I should have known then. Not because of the door. Not because of the cold morning air.

Because neither of them answered. But I had trained myself to survive on almost nothing. A pause could become a promise if I was desperate enough.

Silence could become mystery. Mystery could become surprise. So I followed them outside.

The drive began before the sun had fully risen. Streetlights glowed in soft yellow beads along the road, smearing across the car window as we passed. The neighborhood was still sleeping, lawns blue with early frost, houses sealed and warm-looking behind curtains.

I sat in the backseat like I had as a child, though I was legally an adult that day, watching the city loosen around us into highways and concrete barriers. No radio played. My father always listened to the news in the morning.