Breaking and entering
So I broke into my sister's home the other day. I bet this has happened to you.
My mother was worried about my sister since she hadn't heard from her in a couple of days. Sarah lives with her daughter just a couple of miles down the road from my parents, and she is in constant contact with them. So much so, that a couple of days of not calling my mother is enough to make her worried. (When I lived in Boston, I only called her once a week, and if I missed a couple, it usually took my mother three weeks or so to get worried.) My mother tried to call her, but while the cell phone rang (no land line), there wasn't any answer. When she called a neighbor, she learned that my sister's car was there, but my sister hadn't been seen.
So my mother sent me. Or more accurately, she called me Monday morning, waking me up, and asked me to check on my sister when I got a chance because she was worried. I would have waited, but my mother's worry can be infectious, so I was out the door within twenty minutes, and on the way to Sarah's place. As I said, her worry can be infectious. This being St. Francisville, cell phone service is spotty, so the most obvious answer is she didn't feel like calling and her cell phone didn't ring when my mother called. But if that were the case, wouldn't there be an "Out of Service Area" message rather than unanswered ringing? So what else could have happened? Numerous possibilities, very few of them good, occurred to me.
I parked by the home, behind her car. If it's there, she should be too. I get out and walk up the steps to the door and knock. And I get an answer from my two-and-a-half year old niece, Hope. "Hello? Hello?" I identify myself using her cute name for me, [censored to eliminate teasing possibilities], and ask her where her mommy is. Being two, she gives a nonsensical response. I try the door and find it locked. So I knock on the door and call my sister's name. Still no answer aside from my niece's prattling.
Well, it's time for something more extreme. There's a window next to the door. It's high up from the ground on my side, but close to the floor on the inside. I borrow a cinder block to stand on and open the window, which is just behind a futon. As soon as I do, Hope stands up on the futon, reaches her small arms to me over the back, and says, "Help up! Help up!" As generous as the offer is, I really think I need to do this myself, so I have her get off the futon and stand back while I push it aside and climb in the window.
Once again I ask Hope where her mommy is. She leads me to the back bedroom and starts pounding on the door with her hand. The door is locked. I probably should have spent a minute or two calling to her, but by now I'm pretty worried, so I circle through the bathroom to the other door to her room, which isn't locked.
And there she is, just waking up from her daughter's pounding on the door. She's since complained about my walking in on her, but she was hardly indecent. Hope had woken up earlier than her mother, and whatever Toddler Containment Devices (an adaptation of my sister's term) Sarah might have used, they were obviously insufficient. My knocking, meanwhile, hadn't been enough to wake her.
As for lack of contact during the weekend, well, sometimes she just spends the day alone with her daughter, and really, she never gets a good cell phone connection in her house, so it usually doesn't ring. (No idea why it would seem to ring rather than give an "Out of Service Area" on our end.) All's well that ends well, and produces an amusing story besides.
Next time, though, my mother can do the breaking and entering. Meanwhile, I'll be saving the "Help up! Help up!" story for my niece's wedding.
