A bedtime story
with grandma.

On the night Iris stayed at her grandma's house, she could not sleep right away. Grandma's house had its own sounds. There was a clock in the hallway that ticked. There was a heater that turned on and off in a pattern that Iris had not yet figured out. There was, very faintly, the sound of her grandma turning a page downstairs. Iris thought: my grandma is reading. My grandma is sitting in her chair, like she has every night since I have known her, and she is reading a book. That thought was enormously comforting. There were people in the world doing the same thing they had been doing forever, on purpose, just in case anybody needed them to be doing it. Iris closed her eyes. The clock ticked. The heater clicked. Her grandma turned another page. And soon, so did Iris's mind, into sleep.