Full part: My husband cooked dinner, and right after my son and I ate, we collapsed Pretending to be unconscious, I heard him on the phone saying, “It’s done… soon they will both be gone.”

Noah opened his at the same time.

We did not hug.

Communications Equipment

We did not talk loudly.

We did not waste time trying to understand why.

We looked for what we needed.

Our phones were gone.

That was the first thing we noticed.

Daniel had removed the easiest way to call for help.

But he had forgotten something else.

The old corded phone in the cabinet.

The one he always said took up space.

The one he wanted gone months earlier.

I reached behind the old menus and found it exactly where it had always been.

The line worked.

I gave the dispatcher our address before anything else.

Then I told her what happened.

My voice was quiet because I still did not know where Daniel was.

I did not know if he was outside.