I smile at the irony of our family standing between those running away and those who know where they stand

I

stuff the last suitcase in the trunk and slam it closed.

“All ready.” I get in the car.

“We’re going to California!” my younger sister Adina shrieks excitedly.

“If you yell, I stop driving,” my brother Avigdor jokes.

“Thank you for being so nice and driving us to the airport,” Adina says as he pulls out of the driveway. “How much longer?”

“Don’t worry, the airport’s not going anywhere,” Mom says from the front seat. “We left plenty early. We can get lost and still be there on time, we’ll be fine.” Fine is Mom’s new favorite word. “Not that we’ll get lost. Im yirtzeh Hashem.”

I slink low in my seat, counting the seconds until we’ll be off to California. I will never admit to this, but I’m nervous, and my hands are shaking. It’s my very first time flying.

“Another hour,” Avigdor says, his elbow resting on the steering wheel.

I close my eyes to rest for a second, and when I open them, we have 20 more minutes until we arrive at JFK. There is a brief space between me opening my eyes and feeling how fast we’re going to hearing the loudest noise I have ever heard in my life.

There’s smoke coming out of the minivan and the horn is beeping insanely loudly, even though Avigdor’s hand is nowhere near the horn.

This is the first time that my ears pop today.

The silver car in front of us and a brown pickup in front of the silver car are all bent and broken. My breath comes out in short gasps. We were in a pileup. We were in a pileup! My brain starts to hurt.

“Get out of the car, get out of the car now!” I yell. We stand in no man’s land, in the stretch of grass stuck in between the lanes going and coming from different points.

I’ve always assumed that there was a wrong side of the highway and a right side. One side was escaping, and the other side was coming home.

While my ears ring and my sister shivers from the shock, I smile at the irony of our family standing in between those who are running away and those who know where they stand.

Afterward, after the firefighters clean the wreck of a car up, and escort my mom, sisters, and I across the highway to our awaiting Uber and wave goodbye to Avigdor; when we check in our bags, my ears are still ringing.