At Large in Ballard by Peggy Sturdivant

One Saturday afternoon I heard sirens that were too close for comfort. I listened as they came north from Market Street and then breathed a sigh of relief as they turned one block past my own. But whether we think we know someone personally or not, shouldn't matter. This is the story behind a police report that wasn't on the adjoining page. It's the story of Bob and Charlotte.

They have been married 7 years but behave like newlyweds; she packs love notes in his with his lunch; he surprises her with gifts of jewelry. They are not first loves; between them they have children who are already grandparents themselves. But it doesn't make them any less romantic or keep them from frequenting every hot spot in Ballard. Their second floor apartment is across from Adams School; her anti-war signs in the window, his bright red truck parked outside.

Even knowing that her children were planning an upcoming reunion/surprise for her 75th birthday, Bob astonished Charlotte with a plane ticket to her son's 50th in Southern California. They said goodbye on Friday morning when he left for work; she flew later that morning, to return on Sunday night. Bob returned home after work; only to lose the Comcast connection to their new television - Charlotte was the one "trained" on the new Panasonic. He called and made an appointment for Comcast to come out the next day. Then the screen goes dark, what happened to him next as lost as the television without a signal.

The neighbor below heard strange noises, furniture being moved, shouting - granted that he didn't know the couple upstairs that well - but there had never been quarreling. He listened in case a sound distinctly signaled trouble. Finally he slept and woke to quiet.

He returned from errands later that day to find a Comcast man in the driveway. "Your neighbor scheduled a service call, do you know if he's around?" The downstairs neighbor mentioned he'd heard what sounded like an argument the night before and unusual noises. Had seen no sign of anyone upstairs ever since. "You should call the police," the Comcast man told him, and that is exactly what the neighbor did.

What did the police report say? Responded to call from neighbor concerned by strange sounds? Two officers knocked and rang; then they put a ladder against the windows overlooking the playground. They saw a prone body in what appeared to be a pool of blood; the police switched to possible homicide response. They broke in the door and found that the man on the floor was still alive. The neighbor had told them a couple lived upstairs. Where was the woman? They found car keys and proceeded to search the trunk. No body. The medics arrived and realized that the man on the floor was a probable stroke victim, not a homicide.

Meanwhile in Southern California Charlotte had found another surprise in her suitcase - a handmade card from her husband with a $100 bill tucked inside.

Charlotte didn't worry about not being able to reach her husband until Sunday; even though it wasn't like Bob not to answer. She called a son in Seattle and he called a neighbor to check for Bob's car and leave a note on the door. Both cars were in the driveway. Saturday's mail was still in the box and two days of newspapers were uncollected.

Meanwhile a social worker at Harborview was working through the phone book, calling first anyone with Bob's last name, and then the other name on the mailbox. "Do you know a Charlotte Tollefson?" the woman asked whenever someone answered the phone, until at last, "She's my mother," came the reply - the connection had been found. It was 24 hours since I'd heard the sirens at the end of my street, and half an hour since my daughter and I had gone to leave a note on the door. We were the neighbors.

There wasn't time to reach his mother before her flight. Until it was time to go to pick her up at the airport Charlotte's son sat by Bob's bed in intensive care and held his limp right hand; he'd had emergency neurosurgery and not yet awakened from the sedation. At the airport the son recognized his mother's legs as she came down the escalator and then bent to better see who was there to meet her. She moved to kiss him but her first words were, "Do I still have a husband?"

"Yes," her son told her. "You absolutely do." At the hospital Charlotte took no mind of the shaved head, the oxygen mask, the breathing tube or intravenous drip - just reached for her husband's hand while exclaiming over him. And just like that, as easily as she would later restore the cable with a touch of the remote, Bob squeezed her hand in response.

So they didn't celebrate their 7th anniversary the way that they might have planned - no Carnegie's, no Matador - but they spent it together. Charlotte next to Bob every day, encouraging him to squeeze her hand, telling him stories, sometimes just acting as gatekeeper to family and friends from church.

The recovery and rehabilitation will be very slow. Charlotte has turned in Bob's work uniforms for good, stored the charcoal grill for the summer; she won't be grilling without him. She doesn't waste time thinking about the hours that Bob was unconscious on the floor before the police broke down the door that Saturday, their mistaking vomit for blood or that police looked for her body. For Charlotte, the miracle is that she and her husband were given back this time together, the chance for him to recover at all, and for that she thanks the neighbor, and of course, the Comcast man.

Peggy's email is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com She writes additional pieces for the P.I's Ballard Webtown at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard/