Despite Annie"s safe return and the relief this offered, for the next two nights I struggled to sleep. The night of Annie"s homecoming gifted to me the deepest and most luxurious slumber I was sure I"d ever had. It seemed like a cruel joke now, being followed by two nights of fitful sleep and an overactive mind. I couldn"t push from my head my worries about Kathleen and Bob and how we"d return Annie to them. It"s true that the higher you fly on rapture the more painful it is when you fall back to earth. My restlessness was so bad that staying in bed was an ordeal; if sleep wouldn"t take me I found it hard to lie still in the darkness.
The first night I"d sat in the kitchen for a while, had some warm milk, then wandered about silently. The second night I turned on a small, red-shaded lamp
