Between Sisters

“Oh. ” Meghann climbed onto the bed and settled in comfortably. Alison immediately snuggled in beside her, resting her cheek on the precious wubbie.

Meg started to read again.

An hour and six books later, Alison was finally asleep. Meg kissed her niece’s sweet pink cheek and left the room, careful to leave the door open.

Afraid to turn on the television or the stereo—she didn’t want to wake Alison—she tried to read a magazine. Within minutes she was falling asleep, so she padded into her bedroom, changed into her Seahawks nightshirt, brushed her teeth, and got into bed.

Closing her eyes, she thought of all the things she had to do tomorrow. There was no way she’d fall asleep tonight.

Woodland Park Zoo.

The BFG at the Children’s Theater.

GameWorks.

F. A. O. Schwarz.

Fun Forest at Seattle Center.

Her mind skipped from Fun Forest to National Forest to Hayden to Joe.

Joe.

He’d kissed her good-bye so gently on that last morning they were together. It had made her feel inexplicably vulnerable.

She wanted to see him. And not just for sex.

For what, then?

She’d chosen him in the first place for his unavailability. What had been his first words to her, or practically the first?

I won’t take you home with me.

Or something like that. Right off the bat he’d declared his unavailability.

And so she’d gone for him. But where could they go beyond the bedroom? He was a small-town mechanic who still cried over his divorce.

There was no future for them.

Still . . . when she closed her eyes he was there, waiting to kiss her in the darkness of her own mind.

“Aunt Meg?”

She sat upright, flicked on the light. “What is it?”

Alison stood there, clutching her wubbie. Her face was moist with tears; her eyes were red. She looked impossibly small in the open doorway. “I can’t sleep. ”

She looked so much like Claire. . . .

“Come on up here, honey. Come sleep with me. I’ll keep you safe. ”

Alison bolted across the room and clambered up into the bed, then snuggled close against Meg, who held her tightly. “Your mommy used to sleep with me when she was scared, did you know that?”

Alison popped a thumb in her mouth and closed her eyes. Almost immediately, she was asleep.

Meghann loved the smell of her, the little girl/baby shampoo sweetness. She cuddled in close to her niece and closed her eyes, expecting to start thinking about tomorrow again.

Amazingly, she fell asleep.