I was a little weirded out by why my dad spent nearly half the school day in the closet. It was a janitorial closet. I looked after he left and went down the hall. Then when I heard someone coming, I stopped looking and ran to the bathrooms nearby to hide.
"The Visser is going to be so furious with us."
"Why would we? What have we done? And what do you mean we? It was your fault!"
"No it wasn't!"
They went into the closet again and disappeared.
I was shocked.
So other people were doing it too. This...thing...Whatever it was that was in the closet.
Whatever it was that detained my dad.
Because yes, I knew it now. It had to be that. Whatever it was that was making my parents so weird to me, feel so distant, it was in that closet.
I had to know. I just had to know what it was!
But I couldn't just open the closet to the door and go in there!
If dad knew I wasn't at home, if he knew I wasn't really sick, then he would be furious with me, he would kill me! I'd be grounded forever!
And if he knew that I knew his secret, however terrible or however lame it was, then he would really, really kill me. I'd never leave that house again. Just for snooping in his private life.
But this wasn't private. It was something in a public place. And, it was something that was holding my parents back from me. Tearing us apart.
I swallowed more tears that had gathered. I had to find out what that was.
I just had to.
With nothing else to see about my father, I decided to track my mother down...