I AM LYING on my son's bed, talking, listening. It's bedtime.

He reaches behind his head and flips on the CD player. Seconds pass and the sound of a familiar heartbeat grows. The sound is ethereal, haunting: A fetal heartbeat fed through a synthesizer, wrapped in a simple tonal melody that rises and falls, uninterrupted, for longer than it will take my son to fall asleep.

It is the music I listened to in the delivery room, crafted by the Grateful Dead's drummer to soothe his birthing wife. Now my son listens to it to relax, even as he recounts snippets for me of an Eminem song he heard on the radio.

Times have changed.

"This music is interesting," he says dreamily, watching as the moon rises past the corner of our rowhouse, filling his pillow with gray light.

The music is working its charms on him. He's slowing down, finished with a fantastic tale spun moments ago about what if his entire third-grade class went to see Harry Potter and the kids all sat alone in the balcony. Lots of popcorn sailing over the rail, and drinks, and hot dogs and ...

Now he's lost in the heartbeat, which fills this corner of his room. And for a moment, I am drifting too, but my mind is traveling to work, where the next day I have to attend a funeral.

I'm a little nervous. What will I write about a young man who had barely left his boyhood behind before he died?

Was killed, I should say. No toeing comfortable euphemisms, because he's not the only one; too many children in Baltimore and beyond are being felled by the unnatural disaster of children killing children.

I am angry; I am anguished. I am afraid. What lies ahead for my son, and my daughter? Being a good kid doesn't seem to be enough anymore.

I think of the mother of Brandon Malstrom, the 20-year-old student who was stabbed to death in College Park on Nov. 10. And I think of other mothers, who no doubt shared this same kind of gentle bedtime moment. Who trusted in the way we parents have to, only to be reminded in one horrible moment how fragile is this living we do every day.

My son asks me sleepily, "What's your favorite time of day?"

"This time," I answer quietly.

He snuggles closer. "You took the words right out of my mouth," he says.

I hold him tightly and gaze at the neat row of rooflines outside his window.

Breathing deeply, I close my eyes and reattach to the heartbeats in the room. For today, I have that luxury.

Today's writer

Lane Harvey Brown is a reporter in The Sun's Harford County bureau. She lives in Rodgers Forge in Baltimore County.

Metro Journal provides a forum for examining issues and events in the state and welcomes contributions from readers.