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Company Our house is not quiet. I laid awake in the early morning hours and listened to the shutters knocking against the wooden siding. It was my fault, of course, that I was still awake – the evening was filled with holiday card writing and gym-going, and when I settled into bed with the evening’s trashy novel, I felt like there hadn’t been enough night in my night. I wasn’t ready to stop being awake. And of course, when I finally switched off the light at one-thirty, my body wasn’t ready to sleep. I think I finally slept around two. For a half hour, the house kept me company in my insomnia. The windows are old, original to the house, and they rattle in their frames. The wind howls outside and the shutters move again, and windows and shutters rattle together. Faintly I could hear the tinkling of our wind chimes, swaying in the wind on the front porch. The chimes are usually soothing, but I found my ears straining to hear them – as if the music were coming from the headphones of someone sitting next to me on a bus. The chimes are usually soothing, but they were not helping last night. Greg came to bed sometime before I fell asleep, and when he found me still awake, he moved closer to me and stroked my hair. This helped, and after a final trip to the bathroom, I finally fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning, the house was not quiet. The wind was still rattling the shutters and the windows in their frames; the chimes were still tinkling. The attic was creaking and Greg next to me was snoring softly. My fingers reached out for the snooze button twice, three times. I turned away from the glaring digital numbers and stared at the back of Greg's head for a little while before closing my eyes again. My ears were filled with the sounds of our home as I drifted in and out of sleep before finally waking. For an hour, the house kept me company this morning. |