My parents forced me and my little son out of their car at two in the morning, onto a freezing desert highway. Mom laughed, “Let the animals freeze.” Dad laughed, “You should have gone back to the womb from whence you came.” They thought we had no way out, but I made sure they never laughed again.

At 2:13 a.m., on a deserted stretch of Highway 95 near Tonopah, Nevada, my father slammed on the brakes so hard that my six-year-old son’s forehead hit the back of the passenger seat.

“Go away,” he said.

For a moment, I thought I’d misheard. Outside the windshield, the desert stretched out black and endless, interrupted only by the headlights and the clear lines of the road. Twenty minutes earlier, a sign had indicated 29 degrees.

“Dad,” I said, my voice breaking with emotion. “Eli’s in the car.”

My mother whirled around from the front seat. Her lipstick was still flawless, even at two in the morning. “Then hold on tight,” she said, smiling. “Let the animals freeze.”

Dad laughed bitterly. “You should have gone back to the womb you came from.”

Eli woke up fully. “Mom?”

I reached out for him, but Dad was already out, throwing open the door and grabbing my backpack from the floor. It burst open when it hit the asphalt. Eli’s inhaler rolled under the car.

“His inhaler,” I said.

Mom looked down, then crushed him under her boot.

At that moment something inside me went cold and still.

They’d taken my house keys earlier “just in case.” My wallet was in Mom’s purse because she’d offered to “hold” it when we stopped for gas. My phone was dead because Dad had unplugged the charger and called me dramatic for worrying.

It was not an accident.

They had planned it.

Dad threw Eli’s little dinosaur blanket behind us. It fell into the dust. Then the car sped off, its red taillights disappearing into the darkness as my son yelled at his grandparents to come back.

I wrapped Eli in my coat and tried not to cry. Tears wasted heat. Tears wasted breath.

Nearby there was a kilometer marker: 134.

I remembered it because Dad had always underestimated me. Everyone did.

Ten minutes after they left, I noticed a faint flashing light on the emergency lane behind us. A highway weather camera. I’d seen it when Dad stopped the car. My parents had abandoned us right under state surveillance, their license plates clearly visible in the headlights and their voices loud enough to be picked up.

I led Eli to the camera pole, picked up my dead phone, and pressed the emergency power button anyway. Nothing.

Then, in the distance, a truck appeared.

I moved into the emergency lane and waved both arms until the driver stopped.

By dawn, my parents were no longer laughing.

PART 2

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