Someone's Listening in the Dark
She could hear the phone ringing. Phones ringing during the night were never good. Sometimes it was for her dad, but mostly he got paged. The phone actually ringing was the sign that something bad was happening.
She pulled the covers over her head and tried to blot out the sound of the phone, of her dad's voice, of her mother's cry.
Phones ringing at night were not a good thing.
"Get dressed, Joan. We need to go now."
Her mother sounded strange, but of course she would. The phone had woken them up. But why did they all have to go? Why did her mother want her to get dressed? Nothing made sense.
She struggled into her jeans and pulled a sweatshirt over her head. She hadn't finished her essay for English. She was going to do it in the morning, before school. Would they be home in time to finish it?
She stepped out of her room to face an equally sleepy Luke. He reached out and took her hand.
He never did that. It was a sign of bad things.
Her dad was staring straight ahead, down the road. Her mother was crying. She had cried the night they called to say that her grandpa had died. Other than that, her mom didn't cry very often.
She heard her dad swear under his breath. She turned to look at Luke, to see if he had heard, but Luke was staring out the window into the dark.
"Why"
She stopped. She wasn't sure what she was going to say.
Her mom turned to look at her. "What Joan?"
"Why did we come too?" The call in the night, it was for the parents. She heard them ask for his parentswhen she picked the phone upbecause it was ringing in the night.
Her mom just stared at her. Then she turned back, away from Joan and began crying again.
"Because they think he's going to die," Luke said, his voice quiet and even.
"Oh."
She and Luke had been sitting in the hall for hours. They had taken her parents away as soon as they got to the hospital, but the nurse told them to sit down and wait.
It was hard to wait.
Wait for Kevin to die.
Would they let her see him before he did? How would she
She couldn't even think of it. She had to do something. What could she do?
There had to be something that would help.
"I'll study hard, stop talking back, clean my roomeven go to churchjust please God, save my brother."
Luke looked over at her. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," she answered. She dropped her head and repeated it again, this time in a whisper. "I'll study hard, stop talking back, clean my room, go to churchlet Kevin live."
Over and over she said it, until a hand slid across her back, pulling her close. She looked up. It was her mom.
"He's going to be okay," her mom said.
She looked up, the tears still in hers eyes. "Really?"
"Really."
Her mom stood up and walked back over to where her dad was standing. She turned to look at Luke. His face was covered with relief in a way that she had never seen before. For good measure, she repeated it in her head once more.
"I'll study hard, stop talking back, clean my room, go to church"
Suddenly a calm came over her. Someone had listened.
FIN