radio

We weren't sure if it was at 12:01 a.m. or 5:59, some time before we woke up for sure, but that day the radio broadcasted only good news. It was the kind of thing you noticed right away in the relieved tone of the announcers.

By the time we'd had our coffee my wife and I were feeling pretty good. The baby seemed to pick up on it as well and he just sat there, smiling. As an experiment we kept moving him to different positions to see if he'd get pissed but he just wouldn't stop smiling. Upside down, smile. Sideways, lying on his stomach, on top of the cat, sitting in the refrigerator. All smiles.

We kept switching stations but no matter where we looked we couldn't find bad news. On the conservative station a Mexican man had legally immigrated and gone on to success as CEO of an environmentally-friendly burger chain. On the lefty ones it was Hugo Chavez's birthday and he was unstoppable, giving out free kittens for each of the world's citizens, postage paid. NPR was doing a 24-hour Car Talk marathon. In sports, the Phillies had won the World Series.

The news was so good that I worried we might be hallucinating. At lunch I asked my wife to feel my chest, which had this strange new feeling, kind of queasy, kind of nervous, but it made me smile. I asked my wife what it was. "That's hope, honey," she said, like talking to an toddler. But she was still smiling too.

By 3 p.m. we were happier than our first date and the neighbors had stopped by and we were all sharing stories. You could picture the radio waves going out all over the place, like friendly ghosts.

That night the kid fell asleep early and she and I made spaghetti and lit candles and talked to each other like real people, the radio still going in the background. When we went to bed the good news continued unabated and we went down to sleep knowing all was good in the world forever amen.

In the dead middle of the night my wife woke me up crying. In a minute we both were, then the pumpkin too. We switched the radio back on, waiting for the other shoe to drop.