laughter, screaming, and tears

Since Chad left, I have spent every day with my family. My brother is going through a really hard time too, so he has spent about half of the nights at my place. Sunday, we drove home from spending the day at mom and dad’s. It was around 10:30 or so, and it was raining. Dunkyn and Dolan were in the backseat of the car. We pull up to the house and sit in the driveway for a few minutes, both of us crying and talking about whether or not my brother should spend the night (he ended up not staying that night). While we are sitting there, Dolan begins to growl softly. I didn’t think much of this, as he has started to do that a lot lately. However, soon, his growl turned to out and out barking, which is very unusual for him. I told him to be quiet that there was no one out there. As I said that, I turned and looked out my driver-side door. Less that five feet away, in the raining darkness, a slender figure stood, staring at us, towering over the car (the driveway is sunken a bit), in a trench coat and what looked like a wet, shapeless fishing hat. Visions of getting killed by a wandering vagrant flittered through my mind. I started screaming at the top of my lungs. In response, my brother started doing the same, and yelling for me to back the car up and drive away. I knew this was what I should do, and I am ashamed to say that, just like in the movies, I was struck stupid. I couldn’t figure out how to put the care in reverse. I continued to scream and pound my window as hard as I could. I guess trying to scare the man away. In between my yells, I finally heard a small, timid voice mumble, “It’s me…” It took me a second, but the voice worked its way through. I flung open the door and saw my next door neighbor, who was on her way to her overnight shift. She had seen us pull in and said she wanted to check on Dolan because she hadn’t seen him outside lately. I simply told her I was going through what has been one of the most painful times in my life, and that the dogs and I haven’t been home very much. To which she responded, “I think you need to lay off the coffee.”
My brother, the dogs, and I rushed inside, still freaked out, slammed the door and burst out laughing for about ten minutes straight. It was the first real time I have laughed, and for a moment it was good, then it kinda made everything more painful. Chad would really have enjoyed seeing that. My brother stayed with me last night, again, and he was still a little afraid of being there.