Annabelle retreated to her bedroom. Soon there would be a knock on the front door. They would ask her questions, chronicling her responses in little notebooks. They would want statements, names, dates. She would get flustered and might slip up.

She removed her slipppers and slid silently into bed, cacooning herself between her warm flannel sheets and faded beige and white floral down comforter. Flashes of red and blue light splashed against her eggshell white walls in a silent unrelenting rythm, dancing on the drifts of snow outside her window. Surprisingly, the sounds of the night had become still. She fumbled for her glasses on her bedside table, reaching for one of the many amber colored plastic bottles, stowed in the drawer below. Dr. Morgan had affixed oversized E-Z read labels to the tiny containers for her: take with food, take at bedtime, take as needed for pain, take to wile away the days. She stared at the familiar assortment of candy colored tablets in her palm and washed them down with a cup of water she kept by her side.

  If she was very quiet, she reasoned, they might not come. They might think no one was home. They might think she was visiting family, in Fort Meyers or Demoins. She envisioned bouncing imaginary grandchildren on her knee, tiny yelps of glee. She would buy them overpriced toys and ply them with contraband candy against their parents' wishes. Cavities and crazed sugar highs be damned.

A sudden shrill noise pierced the safety of the darkened house . It was the phone and it would keep ringing. Her answering machine was several years old now, bought in a rare attempt to join the land of the technologically advanced. "For emergencies" the salesman, or boy, had touted it as an absolute necessity, still increduolous that she didn't already own one. She refused his desperate pleas to buy a cell phone. "But what if someone needs to talk to you...everyone has one, everyone..." Annabelle was not everyone.  On occassion someone would need to talk to her. She would get a message, a Dr.s office confirming an appointment, someone selling storm windows, a wrong number- someone looking for someone else- not her. She almost wished she'd answered one of those. At least she'd be able to say "I'm so sorry, you seem to have misdialed." She imagined the lovely lady, maybe her age, on the other end of the line apologizing profusely, then the two of them falling into easy conversation. There would be common ground found, an invitation to lunch or a matinee.

 But for the most part the blinking red eye, announcing that someone had called remained obstinately closed. About a month or so ago a small robotic voice had decreed...you're mailbox is full...please erase your messages..." She ignored it perturbed by its condesending tone. So now clogged with useless messages, the machine wouldn't pick up. her phone would ring and ring , until whatever telemarketer or term life insurance salesman in search or Raines, Annabelle would grow impatient, realizing he or she would get no response, no forum to leave an overly perky or concerned advocate-of -the- elderly message or sales pitch.

Who was calling her? The unsettling trill, seeming louder and more urgent, beckoning... pick up, pick up...

Against her better judgement, Annabelle reached for the receiver and pressed the talk button. "Hello?", she whispered, trembling. It was 12:46 at night.

"Annabelle, it's me, a low vaguely familiar voice hushed, "Annabelle, I'm sorry, but I did it for you..."