Wr1tt3n0ne

Bunches and bunches
2021-07-19 15:39:06 (UTC)

In the Witching Hour

It was late, having had a sweet date after driving a lovely winding country road, Mr. Curved Line and I entwined and lay drowsing. The calm of the night was remarkable. Periodically he would wake and caress my back or arms, cupping my face from time to time and I would wrap myself more tightly into his embrace. My arms gathered around him and pulling him snugly against my neck and face. As the night thickened around us, our breathing became rhythmic and slowed.
"Mom?"
My child called for me in the way that makes a parent's heart chill into place. I called out to her, to no response, Mr. Curved Line was unwrapping himself and asking me if I wanted the light on as I was already pivoting both upright and out of bed in a smooth flourish of the covers. I agreed and the the light on the bed side table snapped on, but my kid wasn't in the room or even at the door kept ajar for my cat. I was fumbling for my glasses and calling out to her, to nothing.
We looked at each other for a beat and he asked me if I was going to to check on her. I replied that she almost never woke me like this in the night as I crossed the room to let myself quietly out into the dark hallway. My door whispering shut behind me dwindling the light as I made my way to her still darkened room. Still calling quietly out to her. Was she ok?
The words died somewhere in the back of my throat as I saw her curled up, fast asleep peacefully slumbering. I took a couple of steps into her room at any rate. Then as the her door began to close softly behind me, my gaze followed my trailing hand to the door and a last glimpse of the hallway beyond. My breathing quickened. Someone had called me. My cat perched sleeping in the hallway at the intersection to my room. I stepped past him on my rapid return.
"She ok?"
"She's ...alseep."
I looked straight into Mr. Curved Line's eyes as I eagerly crossed the room to the relative safety of the bed.
"Was that your cat?"
I stammered out that my cat did make sounds that might sound like that, but not that sounded so like my daughter in distress. I had recognized her voice. That my cat couldn't effect. Besides he only awakened when I returned to my room, well after the initial call.
I asked him again, he'd heard that call? He had. Was he scared? No. I settled into his arms gobsmacked. He asked me if I was scared. Mostly for him, not myself. This was after all, my everyday life, but not his.




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