Kai has had more trouble than usual falling asleep since the beginning of December. This, I suspect, is a combo platter of the medicine we give him becoming less effective (this happens eventually with all of his sleep meds), and anticipation of Christmas.
As a result, he’s driving everyone nuts—not answering when you call his name, refusing to do any work. His teacher, who has been his teacher for two-and-a-half years, even sent home a note home about him, which was pretty much my first note home in two-and-a-half years. I swear that woman has the patience of a saint.
I was up late last night fiddling with the Elf (as in the one on the Shelf), when Kai slunk downstairs and sat down in front of my computer. It was midnight.
“What are you doing up?” I asked, horrified for all the reasons one might be horrified to find their child awake in the middle of the night—a hard wake-up in the morning, my child-free time invaded with demands for snacks, fiddling with the damn Elf that was supposed to be Santa’s emissary and not something one’s mother moves every night so she can extort decent behavior out of you.
“Why is the Elf up there?” he asked, indicating the Elf's new position on top of cabinet. By rights, he should have been in the same position he'd been in when I sent Kai to bed hours earlier.
I cast about for a clever lie and couldn't fine one. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed. He must have already gone to the North Pole and back.”
“Can I have a snack?”
“You need to go to bed, Kai.”
“But I’m not tired and my iPad died.”
I sighed again. “You can use mine, Buddy,” I said, and I marched him up to my room. With Scott in California for the week I had Kai get in bed with me, ostensibly so I could keep an eye on him. He lay under the covers, watching Paw Patrol. I read a few pages of my book, my eyes getting so heavy that I reread the same paragraph three times before I gave up and turned off the light.
:::
It was pitch dark when I woke up, the house silent. I looked at the clock. It was 5:41.
Then I rolled over to check on Kai.
And he was gone.
Scott’s side of the bed was empty, the covers kicked down to the edge.
I rolled back over and closed my eyes, thinking about where Kai might be. I assumed he’d gone back to his room, and started to drift off again, and then a tiny sliver of doubt crossed my mind.
What if he’d gone outside again?
I mean, chances were slim that he’d done this, but who knew with Kai? Maybe he went out back to—I don’t know—play with his flashlight or dig for dinosaur fossils? The door would have locked behind him. What if he was outside shivering? Or worse?
I swung my feet down and padded to his room. The door was closed.
“Kai?” I said, as I opened it.
I stood on my tiptoes to see the top bunk.
He wasn’t there.
Damn.
Sometimes, he goes downstairs in the middle of a sleepless night, and I jogged halfway down the staircase so I could see the couch in the TV room.
Nope.
Sometimes, he goes into the kitchen in the middle of the night, eats a few ice cream sandwiches and watches youtube.
I didn’t even need to look. It was too dark, too quiet, I could feel the emptiness.
“Kai?” I called, panic bubbling.
“Kai?” I called, louder, not expecting an answer but hoping just the same.
I ran back to my room and threw on the light, searching for my Uggs, unplugging my phone.
Where was he?
The covers where jumbled at the food of the bed, and, with the desperation of the, uh, desperate, I pulled them off the bed completely.
And there he was, sleeping peacefully, curled into a tiny ball.
I stared at him for a long moment, this strange kid who has never in his 8 years and 10 months on this planet ever given me a moment’s peace, before covering him back up and crawling back into bed myself.
And that’s where 6:50 found us. And 6:58. And 7:06. And 7:14.
Later, I would discover that during the night, the coffeemaker died.
Turns out the devil really was coming for one of us.
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