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He stood silhouetted in the doorway.  “I need you to take her for a few minutes.”

I turned my head so quickly that it sounded like a whip snapping.  “Really?”  I said, with deceptive calm as I slowly straightened from taking the dishes out of the washer.  I let my hands drop casually to my side, fingers flexing.  The theme song from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly welled in my head.  I had known this moment would come.

I narrowed my eyes, assessing, and our steely gazes locked.  My husband said that it’d only be for a few minutes, but he lies.  I know this because I had done the same thing when I lied for him to take our daughter a mere (had it been two hours already??) moment before so that I could get a few things done.  If I took her now, I might never have my hands free again.

He shifted our daughter from one hip to the other.  He was getting ready.  But I was ready, too.  I had trained for this moment for years.  At work.  You NEVER take a piece of paper that someone is trying to hand you until you know what it is and exactly how much work it will entail.

Our daughter chewed on her fist, adding to the tension.

 “I just have one thing that I need to do.”  He said with all innocence.  He took a step, closing the distance between us and extended his arms.

Another lie.  Oh, it may start off as being ‘one thing’.  But I know that inevitably there will be ‘just one more thing’.

I call him on it.  “I want to finish putting the dishes away.”  I whine.  “What do you need to do?  I’ll do it.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.  I told you that more than an hour ago.”

Huh.  That’s right, he did tell me that.  “I only have one more thing that I want to do after this.”  I wheedled, as I placed the last dish onto the shelf.  “It’ll just take a minute.”  I turned and looked frantically about for my ‘one more thing’.

But he was too fast.  Our daughter was thrust into my arms.  I reeled from the impact.  When I recovered, he was gone.  And I never saw him again.  For three hours.