A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father by Augusten Burroughs

force, a gust of wind passed through my room and the curtains swayed. “We’re leaving,” she said directly. “Pack your bag with underpants, clean socks, a pair of jeans, a sweater, two or three shirts. I need you to hurry, Augusten. Do this right now. You’ll need your toothbrush.” She turned to leave but I called out, “Wait!” and she froze.
    “What is it?” she said, her eyes burning with intensity.
    She frightened me. I didn’t understand what was happening. Where were we going? But I only said, “What about Ernie?”
    I watched her eyes slide to his aquarium, then back at me. “It’s okay,” she said. “Leave him right where he is. Your father will take care of him. He’s staying.”
    She started to leave but before she could I rushed in with another question: “But where are we going? Why?”
    I thought back to the Amherst apartment, Mexico. I didn’t want to go. It was like she was asking me to come with her back in time.
    “We’re just going to a motel, that’s all. Just for a couple of nights. Now hurry up and pack.” She turned and left.
    I did as she said, retrieving my small suitcase from the closet. I opened it on my bed and put in a pair of jeans, a few shirts, socks, underwear. I glanced around my room wondering what else I should take but then I heard the car start up outside my window. I closed the case. “Okay, Ernie, be good,” I said. But he was sleeping. And I wouldn’t dare wake him up for this.
    Carrying my suitcase, I stepped as softly as I could down the hallway to the front door. I didn’t see my father or my brother. The front door was open, so I just stepped outside and closed it behind me. My mother was in the car, the dome light illuminating her drawn, gaunt face. She looked frightened and this made me worried. Something was wrong.
    I placed my suitcase in the back, then climbed into the car, feeling like I was in some sort of fever dream, where things aren’t quite right somehow; colors too bright, sounds unnatural, the scale of things all messed up. “What happened?” I asked after I settled myself in the seat.
    She put the car in reverse, looking wild-eyed over her right shoulder as she backed down the driveway. She shifted into drive and we set off.
    “Your father and I had a fight and I don’t want us sleeping at the house tonight. He’s very drunk and I don’t think it’s safe.”
    Something heavy shifted out of position within my chest. There was that word again,  safe . We hadn’t been safe before and we’d had to live in an apartment. “Are we going back to Amherst?” I couldn’t help asking, and my voice sounded younger to my ears, and I felt younger, too. Things were terribly wrong and I  wasn’t  one hundred percent sure I  wasn’t actually dreaming, sick and high-fevered, shaking in bed.
    “No,” she said, “we’re just going away for a night or two. Three at the most. Just until your father settles down and we can work this out. Don’t you worry,” she said, looking over at me.
    “What about my brother?” I asked, wondering why he wasn’t coming with us, too.
    “Your brother’s fine, don’t worry,” she said. “He’s staying at home with your father.”
    Why was  he  safe and we weren’t?
    The question remained unasked and unanswered. My mother crushed her cigarette into the ashtray, which was overflowing with butts, and immediately lit another.
    •    •    •
    WE CHECKED INTO a Holiday Inn just off Interstate 91 in Northampton. The first thing I did was stand on the bed and touch the rough, sparkly ceiling. I could just reach it. As I drew my finger across the coarse, prickly surface I enjoyed a sense of relief and fulfillment—it felt exactly as I knew it would. Sometimes, I would be sitting next to my mother in the car looking out the window when I saw a fence or a stone wall. “Pull over,  please, ” I would cry and my mother would slide the car over to the shoulder. I’d been watching the fence or