The strange thing was how ordinary some of the sounds remained.
The fan overhead kept rattling.
The baby breathed against my shirt.
My phone warmed in my hand.
The keys made a faint metal sound whenever my husband moved them.
Nothing about those noises matched the danger I felt.
I kept talking to the dispatcher because talking anchored me to something outside the house.
An address had been given.
My baby had been mentioned.
The fact that I had recently given birth had been stated clearly.
The dragging had been stated.
The impact with the doorframe had been stated.
And now the missing keys had been stated too.
Whatever my husband and his mother decided to say later, there was already one conversation they could not conduct entirely on their own terms.
Then a hard knock hit the front door.
The sound traveled down the hallway and through the bathroom door.
My husband stopped speaking.
His mother reacted first.
She whispered that he should not open it.
I held my son closer and listened.
I could not see the hallway.
I could not see the front entrance.
I could not see who was standing outside.
I only knew that someone had arrived, that my husband still had my keys, and that his mother suddenly did not want the door opened.
For several seconds, every sound in the house seemed to carry information.
A shift of feet.
A movement near the hall.
The baby breathing against me.
The dispatcher still connected through my phone.
Then the front door opened anyway.
