I’ve put down my book and switched off the lamp. I’m sinking into the mattress when I hear, “Mommy! Mommy!”
I patter down the hall and crack open her door.
“What’s up?”
“I need you to snuggle me for just a minute and I promise I’ll let you go.”
I lay down beside her and she wraps her arms around my neck.
“You know,” I tell her, “I still love you the same amount, even though I want to sleep in my own bed. I love you all the way to the moon and back and forth and back and forth forever.”
“I love you more than you love me.”
“That’s not even possible,” I tell her. “I love you a million, billion, trillion, gazillion times.”
“Well, I love you a billion times,” she says emphatically. “But, you know, it’s not really a number, it’s a way.”
“You’re so right.”
She hugs me again.
“Do you feel warmth? Do you feel the love, Mommy?”
Yes. Yes, I do.