Clandestine

seven

Only fifteen minutes after three, an unknown number appears on my phone. Fear stabs into my stomach. It's too soon for my father to be calling. He can't be calling yet, right? It's too early. If his meeting was done this soon, that means that Marcia Quintana didn't listen to him at all. She just shot down his reasoning until he became too angry or exhausted to try to argue his facts any more.

If it's not my father, who is it? My father always tells me not to answer unknown numbers. It's the common parental precautions. You don't know who it could be. In this day and age, it could be anyone. You can't take those kinds of risks.

That's what he says.

I don't answer the phone because I don't have enough motivation to get up from my chair and grab the phone off my bed. If it's important they will leave a message. If it's super important, they will call again.

Hopefully they do neither.

Much to my dismay, the second after my phone stops ringing, it starts again. The same number.

I sigh, figuring it must be important. I get up from my chair and grab my phone off the bed. I answer the call and push the phone against my ear, "Hello?"

A sickly sweet answers, "Hello, is this Diane Tinsley?"

"Yes."

"Hi Diane, this is Marcia Quintana."

Fear releases any hold I have over my mouth. "What are you doing calling me? How did you get my number? What did you do to my father?"

"My dear, no need to get so worried. He is perfectly safe."

"Safe where? Safely on his way home?"

"I'm afraid not, dear. You see, at the meeting, your father admitted to committing many crimes. He is going to be in the city jail, but just over night. If you need anywhere to stay, you are always welcome at my house." I can hear in her voice just how little she want me to take up this offer. She's probably just in front of some very prestigious friends that she wants to impress with her 'sympathy' and 'charity'.

Screw her.

I say, "That is okay. I'm perfectly fine by myself. Why is my father in jail?"

"He admitted to doing some crimes."

"I know you said that, but I was wondering the real reason. My father isn't a criminal." Even if he was, he certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to be tricked into telling them at a Assembly meeting. Marcia Quintana must have another reason that she's not telling me.

"It is the truth, sweetie."

"Don't call me sweetie. You don't know who I am."

"I can certainly hear your father in you." I know this is supposed to be an insult, but I take it as a compliment anyway.

I say, "When will my father be home?"

"Two days. Are you sure you will be okay?"

I hang up without with responding.

If she wasn't able to say the real reason, I doubt there was one. My father was always speaking about corruptness in the government, but I'd never experienced it before. I had figured my father's bitterness had just exaggerated any small details.

Well, I can see it now.

My father has been thrown in jail for two days and I don't even have the reason.

I open my my laptop and open a browser. It is time that I figure out the real reason behind my father's jail time.

The Assembly brags about how the security of their private online records.

It takes me less than five minutes to break into the site I've used multiple times.

It turns out my father has be jailed as a precautionary measure, just in case he turns out like his father.

I wonder how long it will be before they decide that they need to jail me in case I turn out like my own father.