The Ghost at the Door

The other night, after the kids were in bed and the house was quiet, Darren and I relaxed in our bedroom catching up on the day.

Unexpectedly, we both heard the doorbell. At 10:30 at night. "Who on earth?" I exclaimed.

We hurried out into the living room. While Darren disarmed the alarm, I picked up the phone. I was scared. What if it was an intruder, who rang doorbells and then forced his way into the house when unsuspecting homeowners opened the door? I had 911 at my fingertips.

Darren opened the door. No one was on the porch. No one was in sight.

He closed the door and set the alarm again. We glanced around the house, but there were no signs of disturbance. So we went back to bed.

Except that ten minutes later we were back up doing a thorough check of the house because there was no way I could sleep with the possibility of someone hiding until we turned off the lights. Everything was undisturbed(which sort of argues in favor of messy kids' rooms, because then you can tell if someone came in through the window or not). I stopped short of asking Darren to go around with Holy Water, but only barely. Seriously, this scenerio is one of my waking nightmares when he's gone, and the fact that we actually heard the doorbell -- without any obvious explanation -- unsettled me.

But all was secure. We went back to bed, and eventually I calmed down and went to sleep.

The next morning my cell phone alarm woke me up, as usual. I turned it off, then saw that I had a text message from my neice Courtney. It had come in last night. I often don't hear texts come in because the little chirping alert is so wimpy, but I wondered why I hadn't heard it this time since the phone was right beside my bed.

Then I remembered that earlier in the week I'd changed the alert sound, hoping to find something I'd hear more easily. I remembered choosing the sound. I remembered the sound.

It was a doorbell.

-- SJ