I lie in my bed squinting my eyes trying to focus my hearing. "What is that?", I ask myself. I think I hear people downstairs, but it’s 4am. What’s going on? I get up and stretch my arms as I am walking to my bedroom door. My room is so dark, I can barely focus. I open the door as I am turning the corner to face the staircase, I turn and run back into my room fast attempting to escape his grasp. I barely close the door on his arm and pushed it hard. He screams out, "open the door!" It’s happening again. They're in the house. Flashes of the day our house was broken into surge my mind. Where are my parents? I just realized that I noticed my parent’s bedroom door ajar as I was running back to my room. What do I do? I pushed the door harder until he squeezed his arm out in an attempt to save it from being crushed as I continue to thrust the door shut. He starts yelling, "This is the police, open the fucking door", he yells as he is kicking the door. The police? The police? How did they get in? What are they doing here? Are my parents OK? I need to put on some clothes. "Wait", I call out, "I am getting dressed." "What for hun", he responds, "I already saw your panties… the polka dots are a nice touch." I throw on some PJs quick and open the door and stare him dead in the face. "Does your arm hurt?", I ask sarcastically. He winks at me and grabs my arm to escort me down the stairs.
Suddenly, I realize the screams I heard earlier where coming from my mother. She was being held against the wall halfway down the stairs. "Ray", she screams through her tears. I look down and my father is face down on the floor with his arms behind his head. He is in boxers and surrounded by seven men yelling at him in English. "Wait a fucking minute", I shake off his grasp and push the man holding my mother. "Leave her alone. What the fuck is going on… who is in charge here?", I yelled. For a second all eyes are on me and I just realized I better step up my game even though I felt a trickle of pee wet my pretty polka dot underwear. "Let her go", I stated a little more calmly, "is she under arrest?" "Stay where you are, you need to stay where you are." The voice was calm yet demanding. It came from this massive dark grotesque man looking up at me from downstairs. He cracked a cynical smile as he caught my attention. I grabbed my mother’s arm and shoved the man holding her against the stair handle. The other pervert who had been harassing me seemed bored looking down at me from the second floor. "Is she is under arrest? Am I under arrest? Do you have a search warrant?", I questioned. "No", he replied. "He is under arrest", he stated as he pointed at my father on the floor. "I wanna see the warrant. I wanna see your search warrant. You all need to get out of our house! If you have a warrant for his arrest then take him outside and show me your search warrant!", I yelled. All of a sudden there was a lot of movement, men were walking around touching things, one of them was still leaning over my father blocking my view. I couldn't see his face. I felt so confused. My mother walks over to my father and leans down to touch his arm, he looks up and holds my stare and I noticed he seemed calm, like he understood. The rest of the morning is more of a blur, there are still images in my head but the one thing that I remember clearly is my father’s face as I dressed him. They had him handcuffed and I pleaded with them to let me dress him before they left. I remember the walk upstairs to his closet and I clearly remember choosing a denim long sleeved shirt that clearly matched the jeans I had selected. I even picked out socks and the nicest sneakers he had. The whole time I was putting on his clothes he held my stare. I could see the pleading in his eyes, I could see the embarrassment, I could see the guilt.. but the entire time I didn’t understand why.
In hindsight, this experience sums up my life. That was the moment where my childhood ended and I realized I was a grown up.. tough to swallow at 17. Most of friends were still thinking about rushing sororities and first semesters in college. And here I was with a clear understanding that adulthood had arrived and smacked me clean in the face.
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