The night you wanted money

It happened on a night like any other. We were at a church event having dinner. You weren’t there.

I couldn’t understand why you kept calling our parents, the phone ringing repeatedly before Dad silenced it. “He wants money,” Dad said in a half-whisper to Mom. I was too young to understand that you’d done this all before: drunk texts and calls, expectations of payment.

When we trudged up the driveway through the drizzling rain, we saw the first signs of sabotage. The handles of the front door had been tied shut with the garden hose and matches were on the ground.

in a panic, Dad unlooped the garden hose. rain poured down on our heads as he struggled to muscle the hose out of the door handles. mom pushed us little ones inside and up to my brother’s bedroom.

We felt safe at home in the dark until you shouted at us. You made threats about your “little friend.” We took that to mean a gun. I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my ears.

You yelled at Dad.

The first flames licked their way up the garden trellis. we called the police.

Why did you try to kill us?

 

Ammanda Selethia Moore (they/elle) is a non-binary poet and writer who also teaches English at Norco College. They have been published in Synchronized Chaos, Literary Yard, and The Journal of Radical Wonder. They live with their partner in sunny southern California. Follow their exploits @prof.ammanda on Instagram.