A Refurbished Relationship (Part II)

DISTURBING THOUGHTS

Last post I told you how Old Dog made the unprecedented decision to stay home when Hub went to town. And now Hub is gone and hours overdue. I’m relieved when I cannot find his cell-phone. That can only mean he has it with him.
And so, to continue…

I call Hub’s cell. It rings shrilly in the room with a delayed softer echo in my ear. I jump with a start. The phone is not with Hub. It is next to me in the bookcase. I mutter to a distraught mind. ‘Oh, yea. That’s what cell phones are for. To decorate bookcases!’

Seconds build into minutes, minutes into hours, and still Hub does not phone or come home. The tension builds. I want to phone Youngest Daughter to see if Hub is there, but if he isn’t she will be more anxious than I already am and I don’t even want to think how much doo-doo I’ll be in for letting Hub away without his phone.

It wouldn’t come to this but Hub is older, he is diabetic. He has high blood pressure. He is sometimes plagued by headaches and blurring vision. And he drives like an idiot. Drifting, spinning, and regularly detouring into snow-blocked fields when he spies coyote or deer. This is the kind of nonsense he engages in to entertain the puppies when they go on driving excursions. No four-wheel-drive either. Just the silliness and risky behavior of a small boy resident in an old man.

Now add to that the fact that Hub generally calls me when he is gone longer than he expects to be. From his cell if he has it, from a land phone if he doesn’t. But without that call, his actions today are as out-of-character as Old Dog’s decision to stay home.

And so now I wonder, ‘Did Old Dog choose to stay home cause some kind of doggy-intuition told her it was not a good day to go driving with Hub?’

There are other friends I want to phone to see if they have seen Hub but doing so will spread unfair concern. And such efforts will only increase mine. I think of calling the police, but I already know they only get excited when someone is missing for a week or two. I am left to face the fact that there is no solution. I am isolated and completely helpless. I could take the pick-up and go look for him, but where do I start?

I sit in the big chair dogged with worry. I try to distract myself with some knitting. And then more sensitive thoughts creep into my harried mind. Thoughts of how important Hub is now and has always been to me. How hopeless all would be without him. How needful his place in my life. I want to cry but I mustn’t. And then, finally, the damn phone rings.

It is Hub.

....(continued)

NEXT POST: What was Old Dog Thinking?