The night ends quietly and peacefully.
I’m deep asleep when my phone rings a little after 3am.
I turn it right off because I sleep with my phone on airplane mode so I’m shocked it’s even going off and not quite sure that I’m not dreaming.
A second later I hear crying outside my door and then check my phone.
It was Zoe that called.
I get up and go check.
She’s in her bathroom, throwing up everywhere.
Poor thing. I hold her hair and clean up.
Zack is still awake and opens his bedroom door to ask what’s going on.
I tell him and he offers to help so I send him for more towels and when he comes back with them we hug because it’s the middle of the night and this is crazy.
He confides, “I would have helped her but I thought she was crying because she saw a bug….”
We laugh. That was understandable.
He goes back to whatever he was doing and I get Zoe settled on the sofa.
Then another wave hits and she throws up again, this time it hurts so much she’s crying silently and breaking my heart.
I help poor Zoe get cleaned up again and into fresh clothes and back on the sofa.
She sleeps fitfully with her head on my lap, breaks into a fever and mumbles about things she’s afraid of, things she needs me to get, things that are keeping her from peace.
I stayed up all night holding her, just like I did in the hospital 16 years ago, only better, because now there is so much more of her to love.
