Bernie's Dead and Your Library Books are Overdue

I love my mother, I swear I do, but sometimes I feel like the Ethel Mertz to her Lucy Ricardo. Let me 'splain. My mom works at the Fort Lee Library and Monday night's are her late night--she works 1pm-9pm and goes home for a dinner break from
5pm-6pm. I tell you this because it's relevant to my story.
Tonight, like almost every Monday night, I took the kids to visit Grandma at the library. Tonight was different though. As she checked out the books I was taking out she said, "You have two books that are overdue, which reminds me--I think Bernie's dead--go to my house and check."

"'Scuse me?" Now, Bernie is my mother's tenant. He is eighty years old and hasn't missed a day of mass since Prohibition was rescinded. Everyday he has his routine--he goes to mass, he sings in the choir, then he goes to the liquor store, and has what I am sure is, a lovely afternoon. He naps around 2, then goes for a walk. Life is good for Bernie--I think I want to be Bernie. But my mother received a very worried phone call from Bernie's sister (who doesn't live in the area) earlier in the afternoon--she had received a phone call from 2 other church goers worried because Bernie missed mass. My mother told the sister that she had talked with Bernie yesterday and he was fine.

To which I replied, "Mom, that was yesterday. A lot can happen in the life of an 80 year old overnight. Why didn't you just go and check on him?"

"Why? And find him dead? I don't need that at my age."

Oh dear God.

She continues, "Take the kids and go up to the house and check on him. If the porch light is on when you get there, then he's ok, but if it's not on, call 9-1-1."

That won't scar my children too much. So off we trekked to the north part of Fort Lee, known as Coytesville to us natives. I pulled the mini van up to my mother's house. No porch lights. Jack broke the silence by saying, "I guess Bernie's dead." I inform him that we're going to knock on Bernie's door. Katie, my little adventuress, is all for it--Jack wants no part of it. "I'm too young to see a dead man," he shouts, "Even if Grandma wants you to!"

With heavy feet and heart I climbed the steps of Bernie's porch and knocked. Sensible Katie says, "If he's dead, how can he answer the door?" Now I'm freaked out and start banging on the door and shouting, "Bernie, Bernie!!! Are you okay? It's me; it's Ann!" I repeated this a number of times when suddenly the porch light snaps on. Before I have a chance to react, I hear Jack scream from the comfort of the mini van that he refused to get out of. I'm too scared to scream and Katie, being Katie, is disappointed, "Darnit, no dead Bernie." (She knows he has a pink bathroom; pink is her favorite color. She has dibs on his bathroom when he departs this earth.)

Disheveled, but very much alive, Bernie looked at me like I was crazy. I told him everyone became worried when he missed mass, and when I didn't see his porch light on I thought the worse. He laughed, told me he stayed in today because he threw his back out. But he thanked me for checking in on him, and as I walked back down the steps, he shouted, "God Bless You!"

I immediately went to the library to share the good news of Bernie's being found alive with my mother. "Oh, I'm so glad that Bernie's not dead," she said, "Now what about your overdue library books?"