Fire!

Well there's nothing quite like a fire alarm at 4 in the morning to get the blood flowing.  It was a false fire alarm, but the thing is that YOU DON'T KNOW THAT when it's blaring in your ear. I think I heroically jumped out of bed with a, "Wha??" and stumbled downstairs to see if Olivia was losing her mind since she couldn't hear me over the shrieking alarm. I guess they can't make those things go a little easier on a person.  I mean, the point is to alarm everyone.  Nothing but the best for us then.  I think when they were installed we thought it was a good idea to place them outside each bedroom - that way we can all be equally tortured.  The alarm panel was indicating we had a fire which is about the last thing you want to see in the woods on a bridgeless island because it will probably not be the sort of thing that gets described later as minor. When the alarm company called and said for me to verify a fire in the garage it meant I had to BRAVELY walk out in the dark to check on the supposed catastrophe. These are times when I miss Kenny. All the critters (foxes, raccoons, SNAKES FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, and now island rats the size of shovels) all roam around out there in the pre-dawn and I don't think I could have handled any more surprises, but I could at least hope that the air-horn decibel alarm had sent them running for the dunes. I'll admit that my senses were probably kind of wired, but Olivia (she was not going to be left behind) and I could neither smell nor see any fire or potential fire in the garage. It's a big responsibility to tell the dispatcher to hold off on sending the trucks, however.  I expected the explosion to ignite about the time I hung up because you know I'm lucky like that.  The dispatcher acted annoyed - as if I'd planned this attention seeking event and then cancelled just to ruin her shift.

Hearts pounding, Olivia and I got in my bed and huddled with our heads under the blankets so we could muffle the sound of the alarm in case it went off again.  With false alarms that sometimes happens.  After some restlessness she fell back into a deep breathing slumber while I sat there wide eyed and thought about how quickly you can go from peacefulness to panic, from assurance that the world is right to fearfulness that there's more you can't see coming. I think that's the kind of shift which is always accompanied by a phone call - what's the line, we're all "just one phone call from our knees"?  I've had those calls, ones with the word "tumor" or "accident" that send the world off kilter and even though the normal routines of my day will eventually lull me back into thinking I know how things work, there will always be another jarring, alarm, false or not, to stun me enough to remind me exactly how few guarantees there are for two girls hiding under the covers.