It's nothing terribly obvious. There aren't the same flags reserved for specific events of things gone wrong. Or, maybe these stresses and strains have always taken the same toll that I've just never felt, not being face to face. Either way, I imagine it being much more acute with me 1.67 miles away. To the untrained, it might seem like your fatigue is manifesting itself in ways that even you aren't aware. But of course you are. Who else knows how tired you are? Who else knows what it is to be the custodian of lives, the honest-to-goodness tightrope-walker? A woman swarmed.

So you kissed me and kissed me, but even that didn't cure it. I wanted to ask you to stay and let me hold you while the heater kicked on and off all night. Without my worried brow, without my jutting chin or stuttered questions. All just so I can tell you, in the hours before work, that you're really okay. You are safe.