On My Own

This weekend will mark the first time in about six months that I have been on my own. A family crisis has called Rob away and I will be holding down the fort. I put on a brave face and told Rob not to worry I could handle everything. Which is in fact true. There is little I couldn’t manage should it come up and the odds of anything out of the ordinary arising are, as we all know intellectually, amazing small. Still, I am not all that brave or all that resourceful or even all that at ease with being just me and child for a even a couple of days.

The key, of course, is to keep busy and there are plenty of things that need to get done. It’s not that easy at night however. Once my daughter is asleep and it is just me and this computer and all the creaks and groans of an old house out in a rural hamlet. Sounds I normally don’t pay any attention to because they have become so familiar are suddenly unrecognizable and even menacing. I have already fallen back into my old habit of leaving all the hall lights on. I even caved in to my little one (after telling my husband that I wouldn’t) and she is curled up asleep next to me.

Once upon a time, I slept blissfully alone in my own home. No husband or child or cat. What happened to her I wonder?