I slept fourteen hours straight.

When I woke there was no laundry to wash, no formula to mix, no yelling. There was a plate of scrambled eggs and the quiet hum of the morning news.

It felt alien. It felt like heaven.

I went back to high school. I stopped failing geometry. I joined the library club. I discovered I have a rather loud, obnoxious laugh when I’m not terrified of waking a toddler.

I was rediscovering the ghost of my own youth.

But my heart still ached for my siblings. They were placed in emergency foster care, and visiting Mateo and Samuel and the others in state-supervised rooms was the hardest thing I have ever done.