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Back 3 a.m.
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

“Looks like we have the house to ourselves, boys,” I say, then start chasing them.

::::

After three minutes of wrestling with the two buffoons, I make a quick trip to my dad’s bedroom. I find what I’m looking for, then place it in an envelope, and set it outside under a bush in the front yard. I then text Isabel to give her instructions and ask her if it isn’t too much trouble, if she could whip up some of her legendary lasagna as well.

At 3:40 a.m., I make my way downstairs.

The basement is in as much distress as I’ve ever seen it. My father’s latest undertaking is to organize all his hobbies — what he refers to as Basement Organization Extravaganza — but if he has a system, I can’t discern it, unless it is to systematically place common items as far away from each other as physically possible.

Heaps of refuse are piled four feet high in every direction. A foot-wide path has been cleared which weaves its way through the one-thousand-square-foot space, and I slink my way through.

The last time I was down here was seven months earlier when I was trying to evade a couple of goons who were following me. I needed a tarp to cover my dad’s car while I slept, and I found one down here. Under the tarp were two cardboard boxes. The boxes were so neatly taped down, I had a hard time believing they were my father’s.

I’d been meaning to check the basement for the boxes since living at my dad’s, but I didn’t want my dad to know. I thought about heading down the last couple days while he was sleeping, but I didn’t trust myself to navigate the labyrinth in silence. On cue, my hip smacks into a table, and a box full of bolts and nails clatters to the ground.

A floor above, Murdock starts barking.

By the time he’s finished his monologue, I’ve made my way to the far back of the basement. I lean down on my haunches and run my hands over the two pristine squares of concrete among the filth.

The boxes are gone.

::::

I spend my remaining time searching the basement for the two boxes, but I don’t find them.

At 3:59 a.m., the alarm on my phone sounds. I barely have enough time to weave my way back to the stairs, run to the kitchen and grab an energy bar, swallow it in two bites as I climb the stairs to my bedroom, and flop onto my bed.

As the seconds tick away I wonder what happened to the boxes.

Were they moved?

Or were they hidden?

:03

“What are you doing?” I ask my dad.

He is sitting at the kitchen table, a barrage of papers spread out in front of him.