the things they say: May 2009

Friday night we had a rehearsal to go to about 5 minutes from Evie's house. Instead of driving up there and then home and back up the next morning for the wedding, we just decided to stay at Mike and Evie's for the night. We slept in the basement bedroom with M and W on the floor and H in the crib. About 1:00 H cried out a little and I sat up in bed. I noticed that M wasn't on her pillow and I couldn't see her anywhere. There was a blanket all bunched up tight against W and I thought that must be her. I couldn't actually see her head but figured that was because of the dim lighting or because the blanket was blocking my view. I laid back down. Then H woke up for real and when I got up to get him I felt the blanket that I thought was M. It was empty. I looked all around the room thinking she might have just scooted out of her floor bed. She was nowhere in sight. My heart rate started rising and I started to think of all the possibilities. But surely she is just out in the living room or something. I walked out into the basement living room. I had left the light on out there so that it shone into our room a little as a night light. It was soon obvious that she wasn't there. I noticed that the deadbolt on the basement door was only halfway over. That sent my mind in all kinds of scary directions. I quickly ran upstairs and took a quick look through the living room. Nothing. Now I was in full panic mode. I ran back down and woke up Virgil.
"Virgil, I can't find M!"
"What do you mean?"
"I can't find her. I don't know where M is!"
"What are you talking about?"
"I can't find M. She's not in her bed and I don't know where she is!"
I started getting dressed to do a thorough search and wake up Mike and Evie. While Virgil was getting dressed I ran back upstairs again. This time I turned on the lights in the living room just to make sure. Nothing again. I raced into Evie's room yelling "Evie, I can't find M". Evie woke up and about that time my eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw M all curled up sound asleep next to Mike. I instantly burst into tears and lost all the remaining calm that I had. Mostly tears of relief I guess but also tears for all that could have been. Mike never knew she was there and Evie kind of recalled someone coming in but it didn't wake her up enough to really register. We all just wandered back to bed and back to sleep, although it wasn't a very deep sleep for me. The next day was when it really hit me and sitting in church at the wedding I could not stop crying. I just kept thinking how different the day could have been. Police interviews, search parties, fingerprint dusting, and wondering where my baby was. I think I have changed from fearing a fire in the night to fearing kidnapping. I used to kind of want at least one of the windows or doors unlocked so the firemen could get in (I know that's what they have axes for) but now I wish I could have a deadbolt on every window. Maybe I'll just put a stack of tin cans in front of every entrance so I can hear them come in. Or maybe I'll just learn to trust God. It's just so unnerving for a mother to wake up and realize that your child disappeared from the very room you were sleeping in and you had no idea.

**Virgil said later that he had locked the deadbolt and that was all the farther over it went. So he wasn't in quite as much of a panic as I was.