What was that?

I scamper over sleeping Daddio and a smothering pile of sheets and blankets like a Jesus lizard running on water.


Seriously, I took about three giant leaps, flew up off the bed and onto the floor in seconds flat.


Then I stopped dead in my tracks.


Did I just hear what I thought I heard?


I stood silent and waited.


I cocked my head toward the sound.


My eyes scanned the clock.... 2:03 am


Then the sound came again.


The phone!!!


"THE PHONE IS RINGING AND IT IS TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING"... I screeched at Daddio.


See, the thing is, I have a BIG problem with answering a phone that rings in the middle of the night...it may have something to do with the fact that I got the news of my brother's fatal accident by phone. That call came on a Sunday night around nine or nine-thirty.


For a long time I couldn't and wouldn't answer the phone on Sundays.


Phone calls after 9 pm usually bring nothing but trouble...unless you're expecting a baby in the immediate family, which we aren't.


As quickly as I was scaling Daddio and the mountains of covers I was doing a mental tally of where my children should be.


In bed.


In bed.


In bed.

All the commotion had Daddio out of bed as well and in the split seconds it took for me to locate the ringing phone he had thrown back the blinds of our bedroom window to see if the kid's cars were where they should be too.


Reaching the phone, which had just stopped ringing , I ordered my eyes to focus and my fingers to find the TALK button.


I fumbled for the call log button.....WHO was calling in the middle of the night??????


Before I looked down to see WHO.... I remembered.


BEAR....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Bear and his friends had gone to see a midnight flick (yeah, I know it was a school night..and your point is???)


The opening night for the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street.


"Hello? Hello? Hello" I cried into the phone.


Nothing. Dead silence.


My fingers, on auto pilot, dialed Bear's number.


"Ma" he answered, his voice a whisper,

 "Can you come open the door? Googie locked the deadbolt".


When Bear stepped in the door I kissed and hugged him like he was returning from War.


"I can't take much more of this" Daddio said when I crawled over him to get back to my spot in our bed.


"People like us shouldn't have children".


Silently I thanked the Lord for safe children, the man sleeping next to me, and our strong aortas.


Aortas that have really been put to the test these past twenty four years that we've been parents.


I went to sleep thinking of home defibrillators.