Chapter 1

Theo's drawing was pinned outside his classroom, a square house leaning left and four people made from waxy crayon.

I saw it before I saw his teacher.

I had come straight from the night shift, ten minutes late, with damp hair and a name sticker pressed crookedly over my sweater.

Ms. Arden stepped into the hall and smiled. “You must be Theo's aunt. Sloane usually comes.”

She held out her hand. I put mine into it.

I shook it, and I even smiled back, because her face carried no challenge for me to answer. She was welcoming a relative who had finally shown up.

Behind her, two mothers were discussing reading folders. One glanced at my sticker, NORA HALE, then returned to her conversation.

No one corrected Ms. Arden.

“Theo talks about you,” she continued. “He says you work at night.”

“I do.” My fingers went to the edge of the sticker. “I'm the one who signs his reading log every night.”

“Of course.” She touched my arm as if I had offered a sweet detail. “Sloane just does so much for Theo.”

The mother nearest us nodded. “Nobody expects you to be at everything.”

My phone buzzed before I could answer.

Marilyn's voice came through bright and practical when I told her where I was. “It's not like you could have come, with your shifts. That's why Sloane helps.”

Seven years of Theo's nights belonged to me.

Daylight was when I slept, so that someone could be awake when he cried, needed water, lost a sock, or brought home a book that had to be read twice.

I had never called those hours attendance. They were simply ours.

Inside the classroom, Ms. Arden showed me the small desk where Theo sat. His pencil cup had a dog sticker on it.

She told me he rushed through numbers and took his time with pictures.

I listened, asked what he should practice, and wrote it on the back of the handout.

On the reading chart, a green mark appeared beside every weekday.

I knew those marks. Theo read at the kitchen table while I packed my lunch, and I initialed the page before leaving for work.

Here, the initials had no face attached to them.

“I'll tell Sloane too,” she said. “She'll probably see you before I do.”

I folded the paper once. “You can tell me.”

Ms. Arden blinked, then smiled again. “Absolutely.”

At home, every light was off except the one over the stove.

Dominic had left a covered plate for me.

Theo was asleep with one foot outside his blanket, his cheeks warm from dreaming.

I stood beside him long enough to hear three slow breaths, then went back to the kitchen.

A new drawing waited on the table. Theo had made himself taller than the door and colored the dog purple. I flattened the bent corner with my palm.

Then I turned the page over, wrote that day's date in pencil, and beneath it one word.

Mom.

I put the drawing in the box at the back of my closet.