I'll Take My Holiday Weekends Boring and Uneventful, Thank You - Part 2A

(Here's Part One.)

Exciting Holiday Weekend #2: Memorial Day Weekend, 2006

Our family spent Memorial Day 2006 split into two groups. Boy #1, Boy #2 and Husband #1 (And Only), traveled to my parents’ house for the weekend, where they had been invited by my father to spend a day paddling down the river. Boy #3, Girly Girl and I were holding down the home fort with plans for a weekend of sedate fun more suitable for the toddler set.

As you would expect, the bigger boys, all three, found excitement and adventure during their time away. A little too much excitement: I never completely understood the whole story of what happened, but suffice it to say that, by the time the river adventure was done, the river had claimed one wedding ring, one canoe, and a little bit of skin, but the health and safety of all adventurers remained intact. Thank you, Lord.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, things were quiet. “A little TOO quiet,” as they say. My little ones were tucked into bed, and I was poking about doing the kinds of things moms do when they have a quiet weekend evening to themselves. (In other words, I don’t remember what, but it was blissfully quiet! And did I mention quiet?) Around 1:40am, I climbed into bed and thankfully, quickly fell asleep.

Right around 2 am, I awoke quite suddenly. I was immediately aware of the muted blare of a train whistle in the distance, but it was not a sound loud enough to have awoken me. I had the strangest sense that someone had gently, deliberately woken me up. I lay still in the darkness and listened.

Now, occasionally I'm not the bravest soul when it comes to sleeping at night while my husband is away. I tend to hear every little noise made in our old house and busy neighborhood, and sometimes find it necessary to explain a healthy set of them to myself before I can really surrender into sleep. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, too, an awareness born of my past experience arose, reminding me that it was a holiday weekend when people are away and criminals like to prey. But we were not away. Though the boys had taken our van from its usual parking spot for the weekend… I firmly dismissed all of that as unfounded fear springing out of past experience that would never be repeated.

I began the soothing, mumbling mental litany as I lay so very suddenly, inexplicably, and completely awake. “House settling… car passing… metal gate lightly scraping the cement… The gate? I suppose it could have been the neighbor’s gate. Sound travels well enough in the quiet of night. It sure did sound just like one of ours, though. Perhaps a neighbor’s cat pushed it open. Quiet… soft, rattling metallic sound? What was that?”

It sounded exactly like it came from right beside the house, in the very narrow walking alley between houses where our neighbors have a metal ladder hanging on the side of their house. “Uh, hmmm... Ok, don’t be alarmed. It’s probably nothing. Maybe the neighbors needed to walk through there for some unusual reason. Maybe you imagined it. And besides, you always check to make sure the doors and windows are locked before bed. You checked the front door, the living room window in the front, the kitchen window, the… You know, I don’t remember checking the dining room window in the back. And I was cleaning windows today. Yes… and I had to open and close that dining room window a couple of times as I scrubbed bird crud because I couldn’t tell if it was clean yet. And… I don’t remember locking it when I closed it and saw that it was finally clean. Did I?? Oh, no. I didn’t lock it. That window is unlocked.” I was now very much wide-awake.

Not ten seconds after this realization, as if on cue, I heard it. The sound that I will never forget as long as I live. The distinctive rolling sound of our dining room window slowly, steadily, sliding open in the room right beneath me. That was quickly followed by a loud “bang” sound, which could best be accounted for as one of the little wooden kids’ chairs that sit right by the window smacking sharply to the floor.

Then, complete silence. Except for the sound of the big bass drum inside my chest. Or was it outside of my chest? It was beating so hard and so loudly that I honestly wasn’t sure if it was inside or outside my body.

I froze. I cried out silently to God: “Jesus!” I froze again. I quickly realized that I should call 911, but the cordless phone was out in the hall. I knew I had to get it and, for whatever reason, I decided to make as much noise as I could while forging out there and back, stomping heavily, brusquely grabbing the prize, and shutting my bedroom door firmly. No doubt whoever was in the house now knew for sure that he was not alone. And what did that mean? What had I done?

I quickly dialed and told the operator that I had heard noises in the alley beside the house. And then, that was all I could say, as my mind once again froze, not allowing me to speak anything beyond that. No mention of the window or the loud bang in the room below me. Just another woman calling to say that she was hearing “noises” at night, for all she could tell, I’m sure. She said she’d send someone out to check things over.

I waited on my bed, completely frozen, hearing nothing but the pounding of my heart and the strange quiet below. The babies! What do I do? Go get them? I still couldn’t move or think. I simply sat there praying the most eloquent prayer I could muster: “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus...”

To be continued...

(That would be a cruel cliffhanger, except that you know we're all quite alive and well, right? Look at the sidebar photos. See? We're ok.)