I carefully walked up the narrow wooden staircase and down the hall to transfer Calla to her crib in my mom’s childhood room. I had guessed right; it was newly decorated with a mermaid theme, all greens and aqua blues with hints of pink and coral. Calla stirred for a minute as I slipped her into her pink blanket sleeper in the crib, but she went right back to sleep. She was such a sweet baby. Sometimes it seemed as if she knew what was going on and tried to help in her own way. I turned on the nightlight, snagged the baby monitor off the dresser top, then walked down the hall to find Dylan.

I found him standing in his new bedroom looking around. Mom had decorated it in shades of dark blue with cute pops of red here and there as an accent. Jude and Levi had unpacked Dylan’s toys and set them up on the shelves and dresser top and filled the bookcase up with his books. They acted like they were so tough, but deep down they were big softies. I started to tear up as I thought of all the things my family had done to make this a smooth and easy transition to our new life. “Dylan, let’s get you tucked in,” I whispered and picked him up to get some cuddles in before I took him to bed.

“This used to be Auntie Delphine’s bedroom when she was a little girl,” I told him as I found his pajamas in the top dresser drawer. Wow, Levi and Jude had even unpacked his clothes. “Get changed, little bug, then I’ll tuck you in,” I said.

Once he was snug as a bug, he asked to talk to Luke. “Mommy, can I say good night to Luke? I think he lives by himself in that huge house. Someone should tell him good night.”

“Sure, I guess so.” I found Luke’s name in my contacts and passed my phone to Dylan. My heart started to pound nervously in my chest once I heard it ring. He wasn’t even here, and I was reacting. I listened as Luke’s deep voice said hello to Dylan then couldn’t let myself hear any more. I got up and started to pace.

“Hi, it’s Dylan. I wanted to tell you good night.” I tried hard not pay attention to Dylan’s side of the conversation, but when he called him “Dad” my heart lurched. Was this real?

Dylan put the phone down on the night table. “He said to tell you good night for him. He wants you to have sweet dreams, and that I should remind you that there are no zombies in the basement. Did you think there were zombies down there?” Dylan laughed at me.