A few hours after John left, I has successfully rocked 2 babies to sleep simultaneously for the first (of many) times, and was sitting in the mostly-dark, writing this post, talking about how Amber should be arriving any
minute, and was soon interrupted by a knock at my door. Oh, I thought,
Amber must be here already! But when I opened the door, it was not Amber. It was was Ashley and Bibi, (an LBB family
staying down a few rooms). David had called them (I didn't have a phone at
that point), and asked if I had confirmed that Amber made her
Brussels flight, because he was at the airport and couldn't find her.
My heart sank.
Of course, I have no way of contacting her once she left the US, so I had not communicated with her since she left Chicago, and she did have a rather short layover in Brussels, but she was supposed to have departed Brussels
approximately 11 hours ago, so I was sure if she's missed her
connection she would have found a way to contact someone by now.
There was a stop in Luanda on the Brussels to Kinshasa flight that night, and I was really hoping she hadn't
gotten off there by mistake. That would have been silly, but if you're tired and
jetlagged, who knows? I'm sure it's happened. I have no idea how
she would have gotten back from Luanda, but there have to be flights again at some point, right? Her luggage was missing too, so maybe her
flight from Chicago was delayed and she had missed the connection?
But then why hadn't she contacted someone?
David said he'd go talk to
the people at the airline and see what he could find out.
I skyped Brandon (my brother, who was staying with my parents at the time) and asked if they had heard anything from Amber. They had not. I explained what was going on and asked how we would go about getting a hold of her, and he replied "I do not know. I do not have a protocol for this." Unfortunately, neither did I. So we hung up and I waited to hear back from David, hoping he would get some information, or better yet, find Amber at the airport.
After what seemed like forever of not hearing back, I texted him to ask what was going on. He called me back and said that what he'd been told was basically that if she
wasn't here, then she wasn't on the plane, and the next flight in
from Brussels arrived on Tuesday (note that this was Sunday night!), so try back then.
Helpful. Thanks for that.
I
skyped Brandon again, this time instructing him to call Brussels airlines to confirm that
she'd checked into that flight, and made it on board. "Don't tell Mom." I suggested, to which he replied, “That's a good idea. This would
be a Level 4 Freak-out!” I was previously unaware that we actually had a rating system in place for Maternal Freak Outs, especially my mom isn't one to really lose her head, but it seemed fitting that this situation would qualify as a high-level panic. After all, Amber could be on one of three continents at this point, it was getting to be rather late in the night, and I also was kind of wondering how well I'd manage alone with the kids until she could be located and delivered to me, or if I would be goin' it alone from here. I was not left to wonder much longer. It was while I was talking to Brandon (or maybe right after?) that there was another knock on my door.
It was Amber.
I was very relieved. And very confused. "How did you get here?" I asked. But from the look on her face, I could tell this was NOT going to be a good story.
Stay Tuned for Part 2.
