I worked the night shift for nine years. My daughter's whole first decade, I was the man who came home at dawn and kissed a sleeping forehead.
Her mother left when Mira was four. It was just us, on opposite schedules, ships passing in the hallway.
I used to hum this lullaby over the baby monitor before I left for work. Something my own mother sang. I only ever knew three lines of it.
Last week Mira had her first baby. I drove six hours to see them. The jury summons was still magnets-and-yellow-envelope on her fridge door, three months overdue.
I sat in the kitchen at 3 AM, eating leftover lasagna from the night shift's haul she'd left out for me. The baby started crying through the monitor.
Then I heard Mira's voice, groggy and soft, singing. Sleep now, little moon, the wind is going home. Three lines. The same three lines. The only three lines I ever knew.
I put my fork down and sat there in the dark, shaking. She'd been listening after all those years. The door I thought I'd let slam shut — it had been open the whole time, just very, very quietly.