Doing the math
When the morning arrives and it's jumpstarted by children saying it's go-time, but the clock is not yet green like a traffic light — and those self-same children were popping like popcorn all night long — I can squeeze my eyes shut and pull my covers up and beg for remission or reprieve. None comes.
Nights and mornings for parents, they're the hardest; there are no substitutes on the night watch.
Kendra has it harder: Rosie's unique dependence means she's requiring her, not me. In Rosie's nighttime seances, summoning us from the dead, it's Kendra who must zombie down the hallway, while my own spirit remains mostly undisturbed.
So mornings are mine. Pulled from the grave into some kind of reluctant aliveness, I resurrect, resentfully.
My eyes, in this dry climate, in this cold season, in these sleep-diminished nights, feel sandpapered shut. I fumble for my glasses, my watch; I find a sweater to slip over my slovenly pyjamas and stumble downstairs to gesture helplessly at bowls in an attemp…
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