She was asleep before page three.

Micah made it to page five, and then his breathing slowed and evened out, his hand went slack on the blanket, and the book came down onto my knee.

I tucked the blanket up around Elsie’s shoulders, and she stirred once and settled.

Then I picked the blue iPad up off the floor where I’d left it and looked at the single long crack across the corner of the screen, the crack that was already there before I ever found it under that bed frame.

I shut it down and set it on the shelf beside the books, screen to the wall.

At the door I paused with my hand on the frame.

The night-light cast a soft, warm shape on the carpet between the beds, and I could hear both of them breathing, Elsie first, then Micah, slow and deep, with no wheeze in either one.

“We’re home now, buddy,” I said, softly enough not to wake him.

“Nobody’s leaving you again.”

The hall light was off, the apartment beyond the door was still, and for the first time in six weeks the stillness felt like it belonged to us.