My Childhood on the Run From the FBI

I didn't think twice about the fact that we moved a lot, or that Dad always traveled separately. Then one day in middle school, Mom finally explained that we were fugitives.

Illustration by Caroline Brewer

No one talked in the waiting room. A man with his back bent swept the clean floors, slowly. I wondered if he was a prisoner too. We were late because I had tried on one outfit and then another, reverted back to the first, put on some makeup and then took it off. I was 13 years old, visiting my father in prison for the first time, and it was easier to worry about what to wear than what I might feel when I saw him. Dad had sent my sister, Caitlin, and me instructions before we flew over to California from England where we lived with our mother. “Watches, open-toed shoes, see-through clothing, tight pants, revealing shirts or blouses, halter or sleeveless shirts, hoodies, athletic pants or jogging shorts are not allowed.” There were other rules too, like we could only hug when saying hello and goodbye. Caitlin was two years older than me, covered in clusters of freckles just like our dad. She was the strong one; at times it was hard to tell she was even affected. Our big brother Evan was doing an internship in London so he was unable to join us. Dad had the wife of his cellmate act as our guardian instead, and she escorted us through the system: the metal detectors, pat downs, and paperwork, all impersonal, and then a web of barbed wire and barriers, and somehow through all of this I remember the blue, blue California sky. I spotted Dad before we reached the visiting room, through layers of wire fencing, the sniper in a watchtower circling above. Dad’s hand was raised to his face to block out the sun while looking for us. It was a face so particular to him in its mixture of anticipation and worry, the same face from back in the days he picked us up from school. I waved at him, but he turned his back on me. I was bereft for a moment, and then the guard told me not to make hand gestures at the prisoners. I understood that this would be awful in ways I was entirely unprepared for. They had won. After everything that had happened in our lives, after the decade we had spent on the run from the FBI, I still wasn’t prepared to see my dad in prison.