Substitute

My muscles are sore, my body tired. It is long before my bed time when I creep under covers and fight to stay awake. The days find me at a job long abandoned, it takes my every ounce of energy, I adore every minute.

That there is something at which one is intrinsically Good. That there is a spot where the pieces fall into place and something from the back of your spine steers. One of the children fell asleep on my arm while another nestled at my side; discomfort could not make me move an inch. Hours passed with little lives hanging on my hips as we went about the tasks at hand. As though there were a nook where they were meant to fit.

I stumbled weakly to the office, another shift to work through once the first was completed. Remembered the feeling of being good at something, and how many mornings I would wake exhausted but every time happy about the job to which I was about to go. My father told me it wasn't good enough; I know what he meant, and I know he was partly right. But to these children, all the world is new, every laugh is a clean slate. They look in my eyes, I am cured.