This one is for all the parents:

Chris and I drove to Falmouth Friday for the going away party of his cousin Kathleen. Kerry had gone up Thursday. It was a long ride (with a brief stop at home to see Mom) and we got there about four o’clock. One of the first things we learned was that Kathleen’s brother Kevin was flying into Logan that night from a week of golfing at Myrtle Beach and Kathleen had agreed to go pick him up at the airport. Chris agreed to go keep her company. The plane would be in around midnight. (Falmouth to Boston is a little over an hour I’m told.) Now I was pretty tired from the drive and Chris was yawning from me waking him SOOO early that morning. Yet eleven o’clock came and the kids hit the road. Thirty minutes later all the adults were fast asleep.

Hours later – in the dead of night – I wake up with the thought: “They’re not home yet”. I didn’t snap awake. The thought came and then I spent the next ten minutes chasing it as I tried to swim to consciousness. Phone… where is my phone? I opened my eyes and tried to look around. We were sleeping in the basement/playroom. Kerry was on one pull-out couch, Chris on the pull-out loveseat and I was on a mattress on the floor. Thus – in the dark and half asleep – I had no idea where I was. I thought my feet were facing the door to the room and I could see it… kind of. I sat up and stared as hard as I could into the darkness. But it was obscured by things and very far away. I pondered this as my eyes kept closing and I fell back on the mattress. From this vantage point, however, I looked around and realized the door to the room was two feet from my head. So not only was there a sudden shift of orientation, but also the sudden panic that there was no way anyone could have walked past me without waking me up.

I sat up and grabbed my bag near my feet and fished for my phone. I pulled it out and – not wanting to wake Kerry – snuck under the covers to turn it on. It was 2:30am. Plenty of time to get to Logan and back. And there were no messages from him on my cell – you know, like “Dad, we have been kidnapped in Southie!” or “The car is sliding off a bridge! Help!” Stuff like that. Should I call him? Maybe I should call and see where he is? And if he doesn’t answer, then I would KNOW something has happened. Or not. Maybe they came home and passed out upstairs in the family room. By now I had to go to the bathroom anyway (which is upstairs), so I took my phone with me.

Upstairs was quiet and empty. As I sat in the bathroom, I stared at the phone. Should I call? Maybe I’ll just text him? No – Trust, I told myself. They’re not children anymore. They can handle themselves, right? Its summer and they are all on vacation of sorts. Why hound them, as I am wont to do? They’re fine. They’ll be home soon. But maybe I should just text him…

Coming down the stairs, I realized I wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon. I will be lying there, listening to every sound. Trying to hear a footfall. Looking at the phone again and again. Entering the dark room, I looked over at the loveseat/bed and thought – “Let me just make sure it’s empty”. I couldn’t see a body – but he’s a pretty skinny kid. As I came close to the bed, I noticed a red blinking light. What the hell is that… oh, a cellphone. It’s Chris’ cellphone. Sitting on the arm of the loveseat… where he lay sleeping. Where he has been sleeping since well before I woke up – having crept through the door and past my head without waking me. Ummm – okay.

As I crawled back under the covers, all I could think was that it was a good thing I didn’t try to call him. That would have gone badly.

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