Our new home was a healing balm, but as a four-year-old, unaware of the affairs of adults, I needed no salve. This was the fertile ground in which I grew, a happy child fed by adventure and my mother’s love.
But there was one challenge over which I had no control. Long after my siblings drifted to sleep, my alert mind still gushed with ideas. Annoying as it was to lay awake in bed, it also brought blessings. My mother had similar nighttime patterns, so it was not uncommon for Mom and me to be up together at 1:00 a.m. while the world dreamed. I’d often cuddle at my mother’s bosom in the living room, swaying in the rocking chair as the wooden runners squeaked. A dim light from the kitchen struggled to bend its way into our sanctuary. It was a time of silence, whispers, and soft laughter. Above all, it was a time of unconditional love, which still lingers with me like the fragrance of my mother’s perfume.
One night, though, was like no other. It was a magical adventure, revealed here in a story my mother wrote called “The Night the Mouse Sang.”
The witching hour was nearly upon us. The deepening night had long since snuffed out lights as it crept across the neighboring fields. We alone, my youngest son and I, were the only ones up for several miles around and were about to step over the threshold of a unique adventure. Earth-shaking it was not; in fact, it was seldom believed. But the adventure wrapped us in a warm, enveloping blanket of magic where the world could not follow and where the memory of that midnight shall never dim.
KERRY L STEVENS 