Company in the Rocking Chair

Writing this at 1am because the baby's finally asleep and I have about ten minutes before she wakes up again, so forgive any typos. Two hours of nothing working tonight, just walking her, rocking her, the whole routine, and she finally went quiet against my chest in the rocking chair. And right then something settled in with us that I can only describe as company. Not a thought I had on my own. More like something arrived from outside me: that I wasn't actually doing this by myself, even though every fact of my life says otherwise right now, husband on nights, mom three states away. The baby slept through it. I kept crying, but for a different reason than I'd been crying about all week.