Compton didn’t tell him she was awake. His entire young life had been spent under the burden of not making excessive noise when his poor, sleep-deprived mother tried to catch a few hours in the middle of the day after being up all night. Her heart swelled at his consideration: he’d wanted to be with his mother, but even in the face of his fear or loneliness or sadness, his eight-year-old self had possessed the discipline to think of her needs first. He hadn’t wanted to wake her when she too was tired and sad, perhaps understanding on some instinctual level that sleep was her only respite. So he’d crept in as quietly and slowly as he could, protecting her. She tucked an arm around him and pulled him closer, hot tears pricking her eyes at the warmth of his skinny little body.

And she went to sleep.

—

SOMEHOW, THE DAY passed. Compton helped Lawrence with his schoolwork, played Unicorn Princess with Rose, and chased after Baby Walter, who toddled around at warp speed trying to eat things. She read aloud from the children’s favorite book, Meet Wild Boars, for the ten thousandth time. She fixed breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then cleaned up after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (Lawrence refused to allow her to run the surviving Roomba, terrified that with no competent fixer around, it would suck up something inappropriate and choke.)

Bedtime for the children approached. Compton put Rose and Walter into a bath together and watched from the doorway as they gleefully splashed each other’s naked bodies. Having pronounced himself bath supervisor, Lawrence perched with lordly grace upon the closed lid of the toilet and shouted orders at his siblings not to splash. They splashed more. Frustrated at being ignored, he hopped up and switched off the bathroom light.

Startled out of her slump against the doorframe, Compton reached to turn the light back on. As soon as the bathroom lit back up, Rose protested.

“Turn it back out, Mommy!”

“But then you’ll be in the dark, sweetie.”

“Mommy, listen. I heard the enviramen is hurting. By too much lights.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Wow in da World.” Wow in the World was an NPR science podcast. The children were addicted, especially Rose, who suffered from a crippling crush on someone on the show named Guy Raz.

“So we should be doing everything in da dark,” concluded Rose.

Okay. It was bedtime. This could work.

“Are nightlights okay?” Compton asked, plucking Baby Walter from the bath and drying all his many fat folds in the light of the hallway. She slapped a clean diaper on him and tickled his tummy, at which point, with an expression of intense concentration, he pooped. She removed the new diaper, cleaned him up, and replaced it. Chortling with delight, he reached up and twisted her nose.