Chapter 1 - Down Below the Windows
I reached across my son before I understood what I was seeing.
People were running from the shopping center, some looking behind them, and the screaming carried across the parking lot into our car.
“Get down.”
He looked at me for a moment, and I pressed my hand against his shoulder.
“Below the windows.”
We folded forward as far as our seat belts allowed, then released them so we could get lower.
My phone slipped beside my feet.
I left it there.
It was Friday evening, October 30, and we were sitting in our parked car at Solano Town Center in Fairfield.
I learned afterward that the shooting happened at approximately eight-thirty, but I could not have told you the time while we were crouched there.
I could see a narrow strip of pavement beyond the passenger door.
Someone ran past close enough that I heard their shoes scrape the ground.
My son started to lift his head.
“Stay down,” I said.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the only honest answer I had.
I could not see inside Spirit Halloween.
I had not seen a gunman, and I did not know whether the people running past us were escaping something inside the mall or something nearer our car.
I kept one hand against my son’s back, although I knew my hand could not protect him from much.
He was breathing quickly.
So was I.
When I heard sirens, I felt relief before I felt anything else.
Then I wondered whether the arriving officers would need the lane where we were parked, and whether starting the car would put us in someone’s way.
I reached for my phone and found it by touch.
The screen lit against my knee.
I did not take a picture.
For a while, I stayed low and listened to the sirens grow louder, trying to separate the sounds outside from my son’s breathing beside me.
“Should we help?” he asked.
I turned toward him.
He was looking at the door handle.
“Not by getting out here.”
“What if somebody’s hurt?”
“The emergency crews are coming.”
I said it firmly because I needed him to stay, not because I knew who had reached the injured or what help they needed.
We waited until I could cautiously look up and see responders moving toward the shopping center.
I still could not tell what had happened inside.
I remember checking the route away from our parking space more than once before I sat upright.
“Put your seat belt back on.”
He did it without answering.
I waited for a clear way out that did not take us toward the emergency vehicles, then drove slowly through the lot.
My hands were tight around the wheel.
At the first safe place away from the mall, I pulled over because I did not trust myself to keep driving yet.
My son sat facing forward with both hands tucked beneath his thighs.
“Are you hurt?”
He shook his head.
I asked him to look at me, and he did, but only briefly.
On the drive home, I tried ordinary questions because I could not find the right extraordinary one.
Was he cold?
Did he want some water?
Would he rather have the radio off?
He answered with a nod or a shake of his head.
I began to think he was angry that I had kept him down when he wanted to help.
Instead of asking, I explained myself again.
“We didn’t know what was happening.”
He rubbed a finger along the edge of his seat belt.
“I know.”
I should have left room for him to say more.
Instead, I kept driving.
We were nearly home when he finally turned toward me.
“Do you think somebody needed us while we were hiding?”
