Without Fail

“I’m going to the pharmacy, be back in a few minutes,” I told my husband.

I checked on the kids before leaving and they were enthusiastically playing in my son’s room. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I told them. I know they were having fun because usually they ask to come along, but this time they didn’t.

When I returned, I opened the front door and the first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. No more laughter from playing children. Instead, my girls flanked my husband on the couch and he was reading them a book. I could hear my son rustling through the Lego bins in the basement. Uh-oh, I thought.

One of my girls looked at me with big sad eyes. “We didn’t have fun playing at the end,” she sniffled.

My husband looked at me and sighed. “Yeah, bad timing. As soon as you left things fell apart.”

I wanted to roll my eyes because EVERY time I leave is bad timing. One minute everyone is happy, I leave or step away for a few minutes, and suddenly everything falls apart. WHY?