Brucie looked up, and saw me, and her whole face opened like the sun coming out.

“Mommy!”

She threw her crayons aside and ran to me, and I went down onto my knees on that stranger’s floor and caught her and wrapped both arms around her and pressed my face into her soft curls, and I wept — great, shaking, silent sobs, the tears of a woman set down safely on the ground after falling a very long way.

She was warm.

She was breathing.

She was here.