The cell phone's ring trumpeted from the main room. I knew that it was no louder now than at any time before, and yet, each and every ring seemed impossibly amplified.

That ringing signaled call number three now and number four if you counted the missed call while I had been in flight. Moreover, it was the second call in just a few minutes. Eleanor knew how my nerves plagued me after a flight. She might call once or twice on the off chance that I could break from my usual nerve-soaked reverie, three times on a rare occasion, but four times... I always called her back once I managed to calm myself down. Four calls signified a level of persistence reserved for emergencies.

Suddenly the fear rushed in, a fear that only family can bring. My stomach lurched with a rising nausea. Was it one of the kids? Had something happened to Erica or Marie? God forbid, was it Eleanor? She could have been lying in a ditch somewhere, alone and in pain, reaching out to her pitiful excuse of a husband – a husband that would not answer. I could see her stranded and injured, lying helpless thrown from her car by a late-night auto accident. In my mind I saw her discarded in the muck at the side of a deserted country road – one of many in the wilderness of the rural Carolinas. She could lie there for hour before anyone found her, pinned and bleeding out beneath the wreckage. Why was this the place that my thoughts went? Always to the worst-case scenario.

I had to stem the tide of panic before it took over completely. I could feel it throbbing in my gut. My knees wavered, and my fingers tightened on the bathroom doorframe my knuckles whitening with the strain. My entire body tensed as the morbid scene laid itself before me.

Soon the anxiety would claim its victory. The travel had aggravated my nerves and now with that panic seizing hold I found myself jumping to absurd conclusions. Reason, however, did nothing to abate my fears. I needed to hear her voice. I needed to speak to Eleanor.

I stumbled out from the bathroom and towards my cell phone, yet each step seemed incalculably slowed, as if time had expanded, each moment lengthening and echoing amplified inversely to its slowed progression. With each footfall new images flashed through my head and blotted out all reason.

Erica hospitalized with a broken arm after an accident during her evening softball game. Her mother pacing across the hospital linoleum agitated as she placed repeated and unanswered calls to her husband. I could deal with her anger. I hated confrontation, but at least with this scenario there remained a possibility of a happy resolution. Broken bones and marriages could both be mended.

Other visions proved less forgiving.

Marie – young, smiling Marie – chasing her Labrador puppy Lilo out into the road. Eleanor and Erica picnicking on the front lawn, then turning and spotting Marie too late. Tires squealing as a truck veered to avoid the dog only to collide with our daughter instead. Eleanor shrieking from the roadside.

I pressed my open palms into my eyes, blotting out the vision. The mental channel changed.

Flames flooded up. The house on fire and my entire family caught inside. They pounded upon the glass of an upstairs window, but they could not get out. Silhouetted by the flames and shrouded in smoke, they vanished from sight, even as their pleas for help continued to echo out through the haze.

All logic had been left behind. I knew this, rationally I did, but emotionally that knowledge meant nothing. If Eleanor and our daughters had died in a fire there would have been no one left to call me... no one except for emergency services perhaps – a doctor calling to relay the bad news. I laughed. Bad news? Those simple words did nothing to capture the utter devastation and tragedy conceived within the flipping mental channels playing out before me.

Still, what if it had been a doctor? I realized then that I had not checked to see who had been calling me. I had assumed that it was Eleanor simply because normally it would have been her, but it could have been anyone. Well, it could have been anyone filled with enough urgency to place a near midnight phone call.

My own neuroses had led me to ignore each ring and then those same neuroses had dredged up increasingly improbable disaster scenarios. I needed to check my messages right then. At that point only Elly's voice had any chance to calm me and bring me back to reality.

At long last I stood over the phone. Time returned to its normal flow, and I stooped down to check my messages, steadying myself with one hand on the nightstand. It creaked under the pressure of my weight. My whole body trembled and my breaths came short and rapid – panicked. Soon I would be hyperventilating. The throbbing from my gut had now spread to my chest and an all too familiar ache stole over my left side.

"Take a deep breath and count backwards from ten, Nelson. When you come to zero, take another deep breath. Then if necessary repeat." I could hear Dr. Smith, the always-boring Dr. Smith, trying to calm me as he had so many times. As usual his advice held weight. Slowly and steadily I heard his voice leading me through the exercise.

"Breathe In. Breath Out. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Breathe In. Breathe Out. Repeat."

I dropped to the floor on the verge of a major panic attack. I couldn't do this again. I couldn't put Eleanor and the kids through another one of my episodes. I had to listen to the loathsome doctor. I rocked myself into a sitting position against the wall, breathed in as deeply as I could, then slowly exhaled.

Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Oh to hell with it! I needed to talk to her right then. No waiting!

I grabbed the phone clutching it madly, my breathing still rapid. No, this wouldn't do. Not at all. I couldn't let Eleanor hear me this way. I had to be better than this. If she knew the extremes of my madness then she would surely leave me. What woman in their right mind would raise a family with a man like me? I had to calm myself before calling.

I breathed in again. Slowly. Then out. Slower still. I began to count. Ten. Nine. Eight.

I had spent many night likes this – if not exactly like this. After a long day at the office I would circle the neighborhood ready to see my family, yet equally afraid that they would see me for my true self: a failed husband and father at the slippery border between neurotic and insane. Eventually, after ten to twenty minutes, I would give up and turn into the parking lot at Durant Nature Park. There I would get out and stare over the lake and the woods and I would run through this same exercise – over and over until eventually all panic subsided. Breathe in. Breathe out. Count down from ten. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. Then I would go home to my beautiful wife and my beautiful kids and I would wonder at how lucky I was to have my life. There was a song about this. I was sure of it, but I never really understood music. Most songs ended up being nothing more than background to my mania and were soon forgotten. My thoughts were wandering again.

Two. One. Breathe out.

The panic hadn't left, but it had become bearable. The ache in my chest had even diminished. My rational mind had regained the upper hand. My family was fine. I knew that I should check my messages, and that when I did I would see that all of my panic had been for nothing. There was no reason to worry. No reason at all.