On Wednesday, I was working late when I got a call from Beloved.

His truck had apparently stopped going VROOM while he was driving the little angel home from technical rehearsal in another suburb.

And it was 11 degrees outside. My two favorite people in the whole world, stuck in the cold with no heater and far enough away to scare me.

I left my laptop on the floor, all the lights on, Petunia staring after me in puzzlement. I was halfway out of town before I realized I really didn't know where I was going. I drove up the highway for twenty minutes before I saw their weak hazard lights barely flashing on the side of the road, a dying firefly. I was picturing the little angel inside wearing her ballet tights and crying, freezing. I couldn't get turned around to the other side of the highway fast enough. 

When I pulled up behind them, the battery was so dead it kept tripping off the auto-theft protection and locking the doors, so Beloved had to pull the little angel out of the truck on the driver's side as thoughtless cars whipped past at 60 miles per hour just feet from their bodies. She was wrapped in the blanket we'd bought to give to charity that Beloved had in his back seat. She wasn't wearing tights -- she was dressed in jeans and boots -- but she was freezing, if cheerful. We all climbed into my warm car and waited for two hours for the tow truck to arrive.

It was the alternator. It's fixed now, $427 later. All that matters is that my people are warm.