My husband had barely disappeared down the street for what he casually described as a routine business trip when my six year old daughter stepped into the kitchen, her small face drained of color, and whispered words that instantly shattered the fragile illusion of an ordinary morning.
“Mommy, we have to leave right now, because something very bad is going to happen.”
The tone of her voice did not resemble playful imagination or childish exaggeration, since it carried a tremor of urgency so sharp and unfamiliar that my hands froze midair above the sink, water still running across the porcelain while my heartbeat accelerated for reasons my mind had not yet fully grasped.
I turned toward her slowly, forcing a smile that felt painfully artificial even to myself, because a parent’s first instinct often involves protecting normalcy rather than confronting terror that arrives without warning.
“Sweetheart, why would we need to leave so suddenly when everything is perfectly fine?”