Moon Dawns on Monday

I carry Caed back to his own bed, tuck him in, whisper it's still night time.
Calli waits in the hallway, nails tapping on the floor, hoping I'm her ticket to an open door. She knows I fibbed about the time. We have only an hour before the sun nudges the winter morning out of bed.

She shivers in spite of her liver and white coat. I remind her that this is what she begged me for. Now get out there, Girl.

And then I look up to see the moon cradling emptiness, leaning back in the almost dark of not quite morning, as if dozing in the final hours of its watch.

::

My weekend felt like a workweek. I struck out on a babysitter. I wanted (just once!) to order instead of cook. To deliberate over a menu with miso soup and rainbow rolls, to bat gussied-up eyelids under ambient lighting. After wishing and having none of it, I worried I might unravel before I could unwind.

And I did just a little bit. Unravel, that is.

But then I saw that moon. And it took me back to a scene from a year ago.

It seems it always happens this way. I grow weary of the same old chores, irritable from the scarcely rationed "me-time", anxious that the world is turning without me. And then I look up to see the moon, just a sliver of its whole self, beautifully fatigued.

And with my plain and puffy eyes, I see hope for me.

I turn around to see my son, beaming morning smiles, sneaking a peak through the window. And he says, "Oh wow. Did you already see that moon, Mom? It's so beautiful!" And before he asks why it is still showing in the morning, and what he can have for breakfast, I grab hold of something.

Something I can't explain, but know will be more than enough to keep me from unraveling.