night photo

Flashlight provided all the light she needed.

The lights are out, it’s a very warm evening and the boys are going through withdrawals.

Computers and television are not an option. Without electricity to power fans or AC, staying cool is iffy at best.

The oldest boy tries to operate his iPod, but the battery soon fails him and it goes dark.

We move out to the back porch where a slight breeze will have to do for air conditioning. I settle into a plastic chair with my iTouch and BlackBerry.

The boys are restless, but I don’t pay much attention. My wife is scurries about the house until she brings out a candle with foil wrapped behind it.

“Look, it reflects,” she says, watching it flicker on the outdoor table.

That’s nice, I think as I work to connect with the outside world, through Twitter, Facebook or anything.

My wife sits down a few feet from me on the porch with a book and a flashlight. Oh this is going to go over well, I think. Let’s see her try and keep our boys’ attention with that.

She hunches over the chair, aims a big flashlight on the first page and begins reading “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulaine.”

Once, in a house on Egypt Street, there lived a rabbit who was made almost entirely of china. He had china arms and china legs, china paws and a china head, a china torso and a china nose. His arms and legs were jointed and joined by wire so that his china elbows and china knees could be bent, giving him much freedom of movement.

His ears were made of real rabbit fur, and beneath the fur, there were strong, bendable wires, which allowed the ears to be arranged into poses that reflected the rabbit’s mood – jaunty, tired, full of ennui. His tail, too, was made of real rabbit fur and was fluffy and soft and well shaped. (Candlewick Press, Kate DiCamillo)

Her years as a school teacher has given my wife an exceptional reading voice. She inflects emotion at the right moment and disguises her voice at the right time. I feel like I should be sitting on the reading carpet, waiting impatiently for my snack.

At first both boys resist mom’s efforts to read to them. The oldest one reaches for anything to make noise. He interrupts every two minutes with an innocuous question.

At one point, both of them fight over an old flashlight, only strong enough to cast a weak, yellow beam.

But she keeps reading.

When I look up again, both boys are quiet. One leans forward in his chair. The oldest one is on the floor of the deck looking up at the stars.

Her voice remains a constant in the night air, her tired eyes peering down on the pages.

I feel a little sadness when the lights turn on sometime after 11 p.m. It’s like I’m not ready to lose the magic.

About that time, I discovered I could have had Internet on my laptop during the whole outage.

So glad I didn’t figure it out.

Why connect with the outside world when connecting with each other was much more important this night.