I paced the day away, wearing a track from my room to the kitchen as I spent the next several hours waiting for someone, anyone, to come home. Even Meira's bus passed our house without stopping.

I fretted over trying to find my mother. Why couldn't I ever convince her to carry a cell phone? If it had anything to do with computers or technology, Mom was way old fashioned. Which meant I was stuck in the dark, soon to be literally, with no idea what was going on. My tentative ...