I couldn’t sleep a few nights ago. I dreamt that someone was breaking into the house, and a creaking noise — real or imagined — made me sit straight up in bed. It sounded like footsteps on our laminate floors. Slow, cautious footsteps. Footsteps of impending doom. I got out of bed and checked that our windows were locked, but then my mind was awake, chattering away about the groceries and rice pudding and cinnamon buns and I don’t know what else. I heard Crayton rustling around and thought maybe he was awake.
Me: “I can’t go back to sleep.”
He rustled some more. Then he said sleepily: “Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?”
I’d asked him the same thing a few hours earlier, as a joke, when he couldn’t sleep and went to the bathroom to read. Of course, when I woke up and didn’t see him, I immediately felt frightened. Isn’t it weird how that happens? One day I’m a strong, confident single woman, and the next day, or year, I’m a married woman in a foreign city, an expat wife terrified of robbers’ footsteps.
Now I thought he was kidding. I said yes, sing to me, and tried to go back to sleep. He exhaled soft and heavy like he does when he snoozes, and I thought he’d drifted off. Then, in a falsetto voice:
I laughed and kissed him on the neck. Then, just like that, he was asleep again. A few minutes later I was out, too. Thank you, Bryan. I owe you one.
that is a fantastic story
That’s so sweet. Dave would have fallen asleep after the third word. . . . if he’d known the third word.