It’s cold.

That’s all I can think as I scurry out of the office early. The wind is whipping furiously and the summer of forty-eight hours ago is long forgotten as I wish I’d grabbed a coat.

Home to the ever bouncing dog and wary cat where I flit from room to room with a bottle of windex and a wad of paper towel. The cat complains as I polish surfaces and throw in laundry. Apparently in the fifteen years he and I have spent together I am still not getting something right. Ask him, he will be glad to tell you about it.

Then I’m in the car and stuck in traffic, but on time for once and waiting in a parking lot. I tilt the car seat back and stare out the moon roof. The wind bats around the streetlight over my head as the grey skies mutter about rain and fall. The radio has much to say and sing but I stare at my dark phone, waiting for it to light up. Waiting. Waiting.

Although patience is a virtue I covet, she and I have never been friends and angry skies make me like her even less. Now I begin to fight nervousness as my mind wanders and all kinds of silly and deadly thoughts play with the little bits of peace and joy I patched together today.

The phone lights and I answer before it can ring, seat up and off I go. Past the ridiculous people (why can’t anyone DRIVE?) and down to door number five, duck in, unlock, and a blast of chilly air smacks me as I open the back for a single bag.

In a split second a grinning face peeks in my passenger window. Leo jumps in and I grab his face for a kiss a whole week in the making. We both know it isn’t for long but here is better than not here.

He is home.