Five A.M.

"If you're sleeping by yourself tonight, let me be your lullaby." My parents kept their alarm clock fixed at six every morning. That gave them time to get ready for work while I pulled on clothes for school. The system worked great - I never got a conduct mark for showing up late to class, and for an elementary school kid that mattered a whole lot, almost as much as owning the most colors. Then I hit third grade and everything unraveled. Around three on a Tuesday morning, loud banging in the kitchen yanked my parents awake. Dad immediately snatched the house phone and punched in nine-one-one while my mom went to scope things out. She raised dad's hockey stick over her head, prepared to knock an intruder flat if it came to that. By then the authorities were already on their way to our house while my dad headed for my room to get me. "You better leave. . . I've got a gun!" My mom even made the noise of flipping a safety off. It wasn't her first time dealing with a robbery, and she'd picked up enough tricks to scare people off. She had a security system installed too, but it wasn't screaming, so she guessed whoever it was had come through a window or something. More metal clanged from around the corner, and my mom's hold on the hockey stick tightened. Every night she prayed she'd never have to protect her family like that, but it looked like she was out of options. Either the trespasser went down or our family did.