Char heard the phone ring, but we've learned to not make much of an effort to answer it; if we do, we nearly get knocked over by either the teenager or the almost-teenager in their zeal to get to it first, just in case it's someone who didn't bother to call them on the cells. Even though it never is.

No one came to get her, so she assumed that for once it was for one of them, and went back to the book she was reading.

Twenty minutes later, now curious about the level of quiet that didn't feel right, she went into the kitchen and Kevin was sitting at the table doing homework; the phone was off the hook and lying on the kitchen counter. Puzzeled, she asked him why it was not hung up.

Uncle Craig is on the phone.

Why didn't you come get me?

He wanted to talk to Dad. I said I would tell him he was on the phone.

Your dad isn't home, Kevin.

I didn't say when I would tell him...

I'm not sure what's funnier: that Kevin left Craig hanging like that, or that my idiot brother was still on the other end, waiting.