I can remember very little, luckily. It comes back in little bits of bad dreams and the occasional flashback. I know we were well off, and then we weren’t. I know dad was frustrated and mom was scared. Not outwardly, the kind of scared you see mothers do when they want you to believe everything's fine, and then they freak out when there's no milk in the fridge or a glass is too close to the edge of a table. I remember crying and reassuring, and neither ever helped the other. I remember acting like I didn’t know what was going on, so my parents didn’t have to deal with my worry too.

And then it stopped. The crying stopped and smiles came, but not the kind of smiles that were commonplace. They were the smiles of someone who was posing for the 87th picture at a family reunion. They were uneasy, but whatever happened put money in the bank and seemed harmless. Only it wasn’t.

I remember men that came and went, and my parents coming and going with them. And I remember the day they showed up for the last time. They wanted all of us over for something,

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and my parents smiled like they just got asked to be in their 88th picture. I don’t remember the car ride, or walk to their barn of a church, or what they used to get us to enter. I only remember blood. I should remember screaming, but all I could think of was blood. I remember the last time I saw my parents' faces. I remember the lifeless pale masks that they became after their life left them. I remember my brain convincing me that the before and after were somehow two different people. I remember a knife, a cut, a fall, the liquid I was dunked in, and then snaps.

Outside the barn

In the woods

Along the highway

In the police station

In the car to show them the barn A courtroom

A foster home

The details of those didn’t really matter, but out of all of the lost bits of info, I remember one. 226 miles: that was the distance between the barn and the police station. I ran at sunset. I made it there before the moon fully rose