Page 9 of Safe at Home

Ty lifted his hat off his head and pulled at the brown strands of hair with his empty hand. “Ok, we’ll circle back to the news in a minute. You mean to tell me that your phones were turned off on purpose?”

I nodded as Pen handed me my phone. I pressed the buttons on the side to turn it on. “I told her you’d be upset and worried that I didn’t call you after the appointment.”

“I don’t know who is going to kill you both first. Me or Meadow,” Tyler responded. “So you have no clue what is going on?”

“No clue,” I said. “What’s going on, Ty?”

“Do you not have a radio in your car?” Tyler turned and asked Penelope instead of answering my question.

“We do, but Mommy said we couldn’t listen to it because Molly wanted to listen to your game. We had to use Mommy’s old music thingy only,” Camden answered for his mom.

“We used my MP3 player,” Pen explained, holding her hands up in surrender at the glare he gave her.

“They are okay. Molly is okay. They are here,” I repeated to myself to calm the mix of emotions swirling through my body. Relief that they were okay, frustration that they had turned off their phones willingly and didn’t listen to the radio, and shock after all the ups and downs in the last few minutes. I decided to just tell Molly and Penelope what was going on. “There was a big tornado, and it hit Riverbend.”

I watched as Molly’s blue-green eyes grew very wide. “What?”

“No way,” Penelope said, almost in shock. “Is everyone okay?”

“And you couldn’t get a hold of us,” my wife said, finally putting all the puzzle pieces together. She wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. “Oh, Ty. I’m so sorry.”

At that moment, her phone began going crazy with beeps and sounds as it came back to life. I saw that she had over 100 text messages and a notification that her voicemail box was full.

“Holy fuck,” Molly said while looking at the phone in her hand. “I now understood why you hugged me so tightly. You had to have been so scared.”

“I am really sorry,” Penelope said. “I just didn’t want you to ruin the surprise.”

“You didn’t know,” I said. The emotions from the day were getting to me, and I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I hardly ever cried, but I couldn’t keep them away. “When the phones finally began working, and I was able to talk to Ivan, Hayden, and Cooper, they said they couldn’t find you guys. I thought…”

Molly brought her small hand up to my lips and shook her head. “Don’t finish that sentence. We’re okay. We’re here.”

I nodded and pulled her tightly against me again. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to let you out of my sight. I can’t lose you. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Molly said, her own tears now streaming down her face.

“Is Cooper okay?” Peyton’s small voice asked.

I took a long, deep breath and looked into the little girl’s chocolate brown eyes. “He will be once your mommy calls him and tells him you guys are okay.”

Penelope looked at us with tears streaming down her cheeks. She was one tough woman I had never seen cry before. “I’m going to call him now.”

“And you better call Meadow,” I said, looking down at the face of my beautiful wife. One that I didn’t know if I would ever see again just minutes ago.

“Oh my gosh! Meadow!” Molly cried out.

“Maybe we should make these calls away from the field,” I said as I noticed we were drawing a lot of attention.

Molly and Penelope both nodded in agreement. Penelope began walking up the stairs, and her two kids grabbed the handfuls of snacks and followed her. I trailed close behind with Molly still tucked against me.

While Penelope called Cooper, Molly called Meadow. I pulled out my own phone and dialed the last person I would have expected to call until earlier today.

“Son, how are you? Is your game over?” Dad’s deep voice asked with genuine concern after only one ring. “I am sorry to tell you we still haven’t found Molly and the others.”

“No, my game isn’t over, but you’ll never believe what happened.” I felt the tears coming again and squeezed Molly’s hand with my free hand. She looked up at me as she spoke to her best friend and squeezed my hand back. I could hear Meadow’s voice yelling through the phone and had to smile through my tears. Molly began telling Meadow that she couldn’t talk to Penelope at that moment since Penelope was making her own phone calls. I had to smile when I looked over at Penelope to see that her daughter had the phone to her ear and was talking to my friend and former roommate.

“Tyler? Are you there? What happened?” Dad asked.

“Sorry, sorry,” I replied. “Molly showed up at my game. She’s here, Dad, and she’s fine. Penelope, the manager of her bakery, is here, too, with her two kids. Dad, they are all okay.”

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