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and I hadn’t wakened him. Point to Molly.
    I snuggled in next to
Seth’s warm bulk and laid my head on the pillow, acutely aware that
I was going to be very tired tomorrow morning. Naturally, this
meant that I couldn’t fall asleep. Any other time I’d be out in
five minutes. I’m very regular about my sleep.
    Seth turned on his back
and his steady breathing became a gentle snore. Great. I rubbed his
back. The snores continued. I shook the bed a little and for a
moment he stopped. I tried to talk myself into considering the
little snorting sounds a form of white noise, but as far as I know,
white noise doesn’t make you homicidal.
    At last, I poked him in
the side with two stiff fingers—not enough to bruise, just enough
to make him startle awake. “What?”
    I whispered urgently,
“You’re snoring. Turn over on your side.”
    He turned. “I don’t
snore.” And then he was back to sleep. Snoring again.
    I went to my personal
white noise device—pulling the pillow over my head and humming
loudly. If my brain hadn’t been in overdrive thinking about serial
killers in the mall, at the office, and under my bed, I’d have
fallen asleep despite the snores. But tonight, even the humming
didn’t help, so I went to the only place that would—the secret
place in my imagination that I kept hidden from everyone. The place
where I’m not a wife. Not a mother—stay-at-home, working, or
somewhere in-between.
    In this secret place, I
pictured myself packing up a small suitcase and walking out past
the dishwasher full of dishes and laundry waiting to be folded.
Seth could do those. I was going to go to Tibet. Climb mountains.
Meditate in quiet solitude. Find the meaning of life.
    But first, I had to walk
past the refrigerator full of leftovers. They wouldn’t starve as
long as there was peanut butter and macaroni and cheese.
    Past the bikes in the
garage. Would Anna ever let Seth take off the training wheels if I
wasn’t there to push her, gently, through her fear of injury toward
greater independence? And who would wipe away her tears and bandage
her scrapes when she fell, as she must when learning to ride on
only two wheels?
    I stopped, and traded
thoughts of Tibet and mountain retreats for those of car pool, and
one dinner menu to feed all.
    As always, my secret
escape hatch faded away and I was held by the taffy thickness of my
family’s need for me. And me for them. And then, at last, I fell
asleep.

 
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Temptation on the Line
     
    A bit groggy from my late night, I dropped off
the kids at school on auto pilot. There are some mornings when I
wish we lived more than a mile away from school. Then the kids
would take the school bus.
    But we live half a mile
away, so no school bus. They could walk. There’s a crossing guard
on the busy street they’d need to cross. Sometimes I let Ryan walk
home with his friends, now that he’s older. But it is easier to
drive them in than deal with imagining every screech of tires is a
sign one of them has been hit by an inattentive driver.
    “ Have a good day!” I said
as cheerily as I could.
    Anna undid her seatbelt
and leaned into the front seat to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Be
careful, Mom.”
    I could hear the
undertones of serial-killer-worry in her words. I was going to have
to ask Deb to talk to her. To explain that she didn’t have to worry
because the police were on the job and would catch this guy soon,
making the malls safe for moms once again.
    Just then, she tsked me,
just like her dad. “Mom, your phone is buzzing. You have four
messages.”
    I looked to where the
phone was vibrating madly, setting its nest of cords, and change,
and receipts into a bizarre dance. “I think I need to pay you to be
my assistant, Miss Observant,” I joked, kissing her on the nose. I
dug a dollar out of the nest. “Here. Get an extra chocolate milk on
me.”
    Her eyes lit up and I was
glad to see the worry chased away by pride in her own