Mother's Instinct

Mother’s Instinct

Pulling in our driveway, I suddenly got a strange feeling. I’ve pulled in thousands of times, I go out almost daily. I would have said I could pull into this driveway, and the garage, blindfolded! But today as I started in, I actually stopped the car as soon as I cleared the sidewalk.

“Why did you stop?” Jane asked, as if I’d broken the law. She was anxiously awaiting a phone call from her new boyfriend. She wanted to be alone when it came. (I was a teenage girl once.)

“Something is wrong here...” I said searching the area for whatever was bothering me, finding nothing.

“What’s wrong is you’re not in the garage. Do you want me to get out here?”

“No, stay in the car,” I said, still uneasy but knowing she would bolt in an instant if I hadn’t said that. She looked at me like I was crazy, was I?

I pulled up the drive, slowly. Nothing, and nothing in the garage. We got out. As we walk to the side door, I heard a motorcycle rev up, and then it sped by on the street.

The first thing we saw, as we opened the door, was the door frame was splintered, and the front door was wide open! Someone had broken in! Whoever it was had still been in the house when we got home!

Things were missing, but not much, we’d interrupted the burglar. My biggest after-scare was that Jane hadn’t wanted to go with me, because of the phone call, but I’d insisted. I didn’t even know why. I wasn’t trying to be mean, I just seemed to need her with me. Chalk it up to Mother’s Instinct? I guess we’ll never know, but I certainly felt pretty good about it that day!