Porch Light

A late-night scheme.

It’s just after midnight when I walk through the door of my apartment on Michigan Ave. Kicking off my heels, I dig through my bag for my phone before collapsing onto the couch and stretching my toes.

Too many hours in those shoes.

My phone rings.

Assuming it’s one of the friends I just left, I flip it over. Instead, it’s my brother.

It’s not unusual for him to call at this hour. We’re six and a half years apart, and in hopes of staying close, we’ve made a habit of late-night phone calls. While I was still at university, he would walk me home from a night out over the telephone. In turn, he would call after football games or bonfires with friends. Now, he’s a high school junior, and I’m out of school, working in Cincinnati.

“Hey!” I answer.

“Hey. A cop is gonna call you. Be mom.”

Click.

What the...

The thought barely escapes me when the phone rings again.

Unknown number.

I have no idea what I’m walking into, so I conjure my best phone voice and answer.

“Hello?”

Yep. It’s a cop.

I introduce myself as my mother.

“Ma’am, I’ve pulled over your son. He and his friend are out driving after curfew.”

Curfew?

In the fifteen seconds since my phone first rang, I’ve already imagined three different disasters. Curfew never even crossed my mind.

“Oh, I am so sorry about that!” I say, summoning the particular brand of frazzled energy my mother can produce on command. “That is completely my fault.”

I launch into an explanation before he can respond.

“He was supposed to stay at his friend’s house tonight, but I asked him to come home instead. We’ve got an early morning tomorrow, and I completely forgot until I walked past the fridge calendar!”

“Oh. Okay, well...” he says.

A pause.

“Okay.”

As if he, too, might be overwhelmed. By me. By this call. By our family fridge calendar.

“I’ll follow him home.”

“Thank you, Officer. I appreciate that. I’ll run and turn the porch light on for him.”

I add this detail despite being an hour away from home because I know the porch light is already on.

My dad is religious about the porch light.

If any member of the family is out after dark, there will be a light waiting for them. He’ll remind you ten times before you leave to switch it off before bed. Then he’ll leave a Post-it note by the door reminding you again:

Switch off lights!

“I really am so sorry,” I continue. “I didn’t even think about the time.”

The officer asks me to remind my son to consider curfew in the future. I promise I will and awkwardly joke that I should probably make a note of it myself.

I head to the kitchen, pour myself a glass of wine, and settle onto a barstool to wait for confirmation that our spontaneous scheme has worked.

Fifteen minutes and an empty wine glass later, it arrives.

His police escort continued down the street after he pulled safely into our driveway.

With too-loud voices and frenzied laughter, we revel in our luck, our timing, and the kind of sibling bond that allows you to pull off that sort of bullshit without a plan.

We swap stories from the evening, filling in the details we skipped during our emergency operation, until our adrenaline gives way to the late hour.

“Alright,” I say. “Goodnight.”

Then louder:

“Goodnight, Tyler!”

I know his friend is standing right beside him.

“Turn off the porch light.”

The sarcasm isn’t lost on either of us.

He laughs.

A second later, I hear the switch flip.

“Night, Kate. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

We hang up.