Night walk

What was it that I came out here for?

A few minutes ago, I walked out here to the garage from the room where I am sleeping in the home of friends.

Since the shake up involving my sister a few weeks ago, I have been fighting to make my life normal again. Then when I found out about Robert’s tragic death, and my having central sleep apnea while running myself to exhaustion each day, I finally agreed with friends that I should give up my apartment and stay in their company. At least for a few weeks, until I get some rest and some stability back into my life.

Not that I have cause to complain. The McGuire’s live high on the hog, and high in the city for that matter. They have a sprawling modern home on the ridge in the southwest corner of the city. Theirs is the neighborhood where the well-to-do go to set themselves apart from the rest of the rat race. My friends are lofty only in regard to their address, however, and remain about as down to earth as a family can be. They are quite exceptional people, and I am fortunate to have them as friends.

They have given me the free run to their estate, including the security code to the gate at the end of the drive. Their kitchen is my kitchen, their home, my home. They even allowed me to park my 80’s Mercury in the left bay of their garage – though I suspect it is to keep its rust-eaten body from being discovered on their drive.

Sleep has been coming with difficulty. I find that I toss and turn despite my posh environment. I am bringing too many anxieties to bed with me, despite the light banter supplied by my friends in the evening. Earlier in the afternoon, I try to stay to myself, and stay out of their way, allowing them some degree of privacy and family. This suits me because there is more than enough to entertain me in their rec room, or roaming their acreage, or simply with the thousand-and-one other chores of my own routine life.

But in the evenings they allow me to seek them out. I am welcome to join them in the family room around the tv, or in the master bedroom around a load of laundry. Mark’s quiet intellectual might sparks many technical conversations, and Gina and the daughter Bridget – their giggly enthusiam is both witty and relaxing. They have been my friends for many years with good reason.

I am delighted that they have volunteered to take me under wing in my hour of need.

This night, about an hour after going to bed (which was a good hour after sunset at least), I awoke with a nagging need. I needed to get something from my car. It was a small, trivial thing, but its the kind of thing that was so trivial that if you didn’t do it now, you might never remember it again.

I threw off my covers and pulled on a pair of shorts before padding out of my room and down the hallway. The house was quiet and dark except for a few nightlights, and the glow from the master suite coming down the opposite hall. I turned in the entryway and went out the front door. This let me simply walk around the front of the house into the open garage door, rather than wind through the living room, dining room, kitchen, and utility room, to the door into the garage from the house.

The moonlight was sufficient to follow the sidewalk from the front of the house to the garage. The glow from the landscape lighting on the opposite side of the garage combined with the moonlight to allow me to see inside. The roll-up door was still rolled up, so I made my way down the near garage wall to my driver’s side door.

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