Some Mornings

Murphy and I are in the den. He is curled up and snoozing on my lap while I read and lean in to early morning solitude. In the distance I hear the hum of a phone vibrating, and a ringtone goes from barely audible to loud.

Sigh.

I pick up the sleeping pup and we pad to the kitchen where Gerry’s phone is breaking the morning peace with an alarm. It’s Saturday. Men’s Bible study. Usually he leaves his phone on his bedside table on Friday nights but must have forgotten. I swipe to dismiss the noise and head to the bedroom to make sure he’s awake, then Murphy and I return to the den.

He’s awake now, and it takes a while for him to settle. Back and forth from my lap to the space next to me to my legs, then round and round to find a perfect spot, then a gaze up at me with those big beautiful dark Yorkie eyes. Finally he settles and I return to reading.

I hear Maya barking.

Gerry must have gone downstairs to shower or prep and left her on the bed. She’s older, and no longer confident in her ability to use the stairs we had made for the bed years ago when she was a puppy. I shift sleeping Murphy again, pick him up and go to the dark bedroom where Maya waits on the bed to be rescued. I pick her up and, with a dog under each arm, go downstairs where I find Gerry already at his desk.

“You left Maya behind,” I tell him. “She was barking.”

We transfer Maya-with-the-full-bladder from my arms to Gerry’s, and Murphy and I head back upstairs to the den while my husband pulls on a coat and takes Maya out to the back yard.

Murphy and I go upstairs and take our places on the sofa in the den. He performs the same routine to find a perfect spot in which to snooze while I wait for him to find it. He has just closed his eyes when I hear a familiar quiet “harumph” at the closed den door.

Maya wants in.

Again, I shuffle one snoozing Yorkie and pad to the door to let in another. I pick Maya up and deposit her on a blanket on one sofa then settle back into my place on the other. Murphy performs the same find-a-perfect-spot dance.

Now, Murphy and Maya are both sleeping, I hear Gerry on Zoom greeting his study group, and all is well and still in our world. I could really use a second cup of coffee to replace the cold one on the table next to me. I’m weighing my options,