I Could Have Hurt You

“Did you hear that?”

“What? Hear what?”

“Shhh, keep your voice down. That squeak. It sounded like the back door when you open it slowly. That irritating little squeak I’ve asked you to fix. Which you haven’t.”

“I told you I’d do it. Why does it have to come up all the time? I’ll get to it.”

“Shhh! Because it’s been two months. I think we have an intruder, is this going to take as long?”

“You have a unique way of putting things, Gail. What time is it?”

“It’s 4:40 am. The kids are gone for the weekend so no one should be here. I’m scared, Ian. What’ll we do?”

“If you weren’t so adamant about me not having a gun around there’d be no problem. I have the persuader I carry for dogs that bother me when I walk so if they don’t have a gun it should be okay.”

“What’ll you do?”

“Take their fricking head off if I have to. A broken arm or missing tooth maybe so they think hard about doing it again.”

“You’d do that?”

“In a second.”

“God, Ian, be careful. What if they have a gun or a knife?”

“If they don’t hear me it’s not a problem, I’ll get the first lick in and they’ll be no second. Now quiet, I’m going to try sneaking down the hall.”

“EEEEE! Holy crap, dad, you scared the hell out of me!”

“Ohh, god, Deena, I could have killed you. What the hell are you doing sneaking in at this time? GAIL! It’s Deena.”

”I didn’t want to wake you and mom. Mom, I’m sorry, I was trying to not wake you.”

“It doesn’t matter sweetheart.”

“You have our permission to call at ANY time, sweetie. I’d really rather not hurt you.”