Zoe

She loves it here. She asks each weekend to come and stay. She begs and pleads...

"Please let me go stay at Aunt JJ's house."

How can I refuse.

My daughter acts a fool and each time at bedtime they never go down. Her asthma is bad and without question it will flare each night and each night she comes down.

"Aunt JJ, I'm wheezing."

I pull down Logan's breathing treatments and give her one. Within minutes she is fine and returns to bed with Arwen. Each time I check on her through out the night.

Tonight when this happened it was late, 11:00pm. The girls were agging one another on. Arwen bounding from couch cushions. Zoe running behind.

"How sick can you be?" I ask. "When you are running around so fast?"

I do the treatment and send Arwen back to bed. As Zoe has the treatment I ask...

"Don't you have a bedtime?"

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"A time you go to bed. Don't you have a time to go to bed by?"

"No." She answers. She quickly jumps to explain, to defend. "My Mommy shoots pool so sometimes I have to wait in the car until she is done."

I know from experience that APA pool means long nights, waiting to shoot, never knowing how long it can last. It's one of the reasons we gave it up ourselves.

"You have to wait?" I question. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I wait in the car with Craig. Until they are done."

"Don't you ever get out?"

"Sometimes." She answers. "If they allow kids. Or if we need to we walk around when Justice is crying."

"So otherwise you wait in the car?" I ask. My heart wrenches.

"Yeah." She tells me.

I finish up and walk her back to bed. She climbs in and I kiss her goodnight. I feel sick to my stomach but she doesn't know this.

I have to have a serious talk with my Sister. Consequences be damned.