Note: This is part of an ongoing memoir about fear, family, and what it was like to grow up believing the world was about to end. If you’re just finding this, last week’s was Off-Land.
—Ryan
The Recruitment
"Look at the ears. See how they're the same?"
I squinted at the tiny laptop, following Dad's finger. He had two portraits side by side.
One was Walt Disney. The other, Adolf Hitler.
"Ears are like fingerprints," he explained, "no two are the same. Hitler never died, and he was never really Hitler. He just finished his role. Then, they made him into a new man, and he played a different one."
"That's weird," I replied at last, uncertain how to respond and eager to get back to my game.
Dad was always discovering new secrets—hidden realities that were kept from the general public. He'd put them together like puzzle pieces, figuring out how they fit into The Plan. He'd explain them to me every now and then, but mostly he studied by himself while Mom was at work and my brother and I were at school.
It had been like this for as long as I could remember. Dad didn't work like my friends' dads did.
Instead, I'd often return home to find him in the same spot as when I left in the morning: sitting at the dining room table, a bowl of granola by his side, hunched over his laptop as he read his favorite website: whatreallyhappened.com.
That, or he was in the garage.
Dad was always building something. He built telescopes and pool controllers, some of which he sold on the side. He also brought home new projects, like a beat-up Dolphin RV that he spent six months renovating in our driveway.
He said that it could be our escape vehicle. I just liked gutting it with him.
I knew he believed something that most people didn't.
He'd talk about moving to the South Pacific where They couldn't reach us. When I'd ask him where he was going, he'd crack a pained smile and joke, "Crazy, wanna come?"
I also knew he and Mom didn't get along. They'd almost divorced again the year before, and I'd hear the yelling late at night, coming through the walls of their bedroom. Some nights, Dad slept on the floor in our room instead.
But I'd learned to live with it. It was just life.
We'd still go on bike rides, play catch, build forts, and camp in the mountains. He'd give me foot rubs at night while we watched Seinfeld, and he told me he loved me every night.
I said it back, and I meant it.
I figured whatever Dad knew and whatever he and Mom fought about was theirs to work out. As long as I still had both of them, it didn't seem to matter who Walt Disney really was, or what They were up to.
All of that changed on March 11, 2011.
I was heading out the door for school when something on the TV stopped me. The camera showed flooded buildings underneath a dark grey sky. The headline: "TSUNAMI DISABLES NUCLEAR REACTORS IN FUKUSHIMA."
That sounds bad, I thought. I watched for a few moments longer before hopping on my bike.
I came home that day and found Dad in his usual spot. He greeted me—"hey buddy"—but his eyes never left the screen. I could tell he wasn't in the mood to talk, so I went to my room.
A couple weeks later, Dad began talking about moving back to Hawaiʻi. He told us that he'd spoken to a friend from when we'd lived there before—an old man with land and no family. He'd agreed to let us build a house on his property.
We could design our own rooms, he said. Build our home exactly how we wanted. Plus, we wouldn't have to go to public school anymore.
My brother and I began drawing up plans at once.
But Mom refused. I asked her why she didn't want to live in paradise, but she never gave a satisfying answer. Then the yelling got worse, and soon, Dad moved into our room full-time.
Then one day while Mom was at work, Dad sat us down on the couch, his laptop open with some kind of map.
"Guys, we aren't safe here. We need to move. Now."
There was an urgency to his voice I hadn't heard before. At least, not spoken to me. It was the voice I'd hear through the walls late at night.
Moving wasn't new to us. The year before, we'd packed everything for Australia, filling boxes and saying goodbye to friends. Then at the last minute Mom changed her mind, and we moved around the corner instead.
But Dad never stopped.
He pointed to his laptop. Radioactive air and water from Fukushima were reaching us, he said, carried by winds and currents right to our doorstep. Hawaiʻi was closer to Japan, but the currents went east, above the islands and straight to California. He showed pictures of dead fish washed up on the shores. He'd been measuring the readings himself on his radiation detector.
"They're trying to kill us. Every day we stay here, our lives are in danger. But your mother refuses to accept it."
He looked at us gravely. "I need your help. I wish it didn't have to come to this, but it's the only way."
"Until she agrees to move, I need you to stop talking to Mom."
Stop talking to Mom?
The room went quiet. I looked at my brother. He was staring at the floor.
I was eleven. I loved Mom, but I could tell Dad was really, really afraid. I knew he wouldn't ask me to do something like this unless it were absolutely necessary.
At last, I heard my brother say, "okay." He turned to me. "It's for our own safety," he said.
Dad nodded, "As soon as she agrees, we move back to Hawaiʻi, and things go back to normal."
I took a deep breath, then met Dad's anxious gaze.
"Okay," I whispered.
Later that day, Mom came home from work. She said hi and asked me how school went. I looked her in the eyes and said nothing.
She asked me again. "Ryan, how was school?"
I kept staring, silent, swallowing hard.
I saw her eyes glisten. She asked one more time, her voice breaking. "Ryan?"
I couldn't take it. I turned away, ran to my room, and shut the door.
The next day, Mom moved to a friend's house, and I didn't see her for over a week. Nobody yelled at night anymore. Nobody said much of anything.
Then one day, out of the blue, she came back. She'd agreed to move.
Everything happened fast after that.
Within a week, we'd sold most of our things and dropped whatever wouldn't sell on the sidewalk.
What we kept for our family of four fit into nine suitcases and a cardboard box.
I got one suitcase for myself.
Mom quit her job again, and Dad pulled us out of school. It was only two more weeks until year-end, but it couldn't wait. Every day counts, he kept saying. Every single day.
The last night, I had a sleepover with friends. I took pictures of them as they slept to remember their faces.
On May 19, 2011, just nine weeks after Fukushima, we boarded the plane back to Hawaiʻi. I turned toward the window so no one could see my face.
I can make new friends, I thought.
At least we'll finally be safe.