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At about 10:30 p.m. Thursday the phone rang. It wasn’t another reporter. Carol Schilling finally heard her son’s voice. 

“Hi mom. I love you.” 

What more could a mother want? Especially of a son who had been held captive in the Philippines for more than seven months. 

In a telephone interview Friday afternoon, Schilling said she and Jeffrey Schilling, 25, talked about normal things – the new car Carol Schilling’s thinking of buying, the friend who sold his house, the birth of his new cousin Molly-Rose. 

“He sounded composed,” said Schilling who works as a controller at the Berkeley YMCA . “It was great.” 

Schilling said her son still had to meet with people at the U.S. Embassy before coming home. “He’s exhausted,” she said.  

“They may not tell me (exactly) when he’s coming home,” she added.