I knew Devin was fine. He had told me as much on the phone when he had insisted “I love you too Mom, but I gotta go now!” Devin had spent the first 7 years of his life amongst a sea of familiar faces before being transported to Florida and an existence of Just Mom and Dad.

But Emma… Emma was different. She was just barely 2 when we moved and it had been all too easy to become her whole world in the last year.

I couldn’t get her out of my head as I laid in bed Friday night and mentally retraced what her week had been.

A weekend drive with her Lil’ Papa. Three days with a Grammy and Big Papa she was unsure of. A day with Grandma and Papa – whom she adored – and then back to the house she barely knew.

My grandma (Grammy, for those trying to keep up) had confirmed my fears when I finally talked to her on Friday.

“How did it go when they came back?” I asked.

“Well…” she hesitated, “it was rough. But they were tired. She was just tired.”

But I knew it was more than that. I knew she was flailing about for her sense of security. I knew I had thrown her into waters she was completely ill equipped to navigate.

I hated myself for how dependent I’d let her become since last summer. Hated myself more for neglecting to see how difficult this week would be because of it.

And she still had another hurdle ahead of her Friday night as she headed to her great aunt’s house for one last night before finally arriving at the land of People Whose Names She Could Actually Remember sometime Saturday. One more house. One more unfamiliar set of faces. One more night. It was all I could think of laying in the familiar darkness of my own bedroom.

I rolled out of bed Saturday morning and ran to the phone to call my aunt.

“How are they? Are they OK? Are they being good?”

I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. My aunt laughed and assured me that Devin was fine and enjoying his time with his cousins.

“And Emma?”

“She’s good, Britt. She’s really good.”

The vice around my heart eased ever so slightly as my aunt assured me she was playing with her cousins. I even laughed a little when she asked me how in the hell she was supposed to tell the difference between Emma’s left and right socks. I found a small comfort in my daughter’s familiar oddity being shared with someone else.

But even as I listened to my aunt’s happy voice over the line, I was painfully aware of how quiet her house seemed on the other end. Far too quiet for a Saturday morning with my kids.

And then I heard it. Just barely at first, and then louder and louder until there was no mistaking the sound filtering through the phone.

“Nana! Nana!”

It was happy and clear and mixed with an easy giggle.

“Oh, your mom just walked in, just a second,” then my aunt’s voice was gone. In it’s place was the distinct sound of the commotion I’d been straining to hear just five minutes earlier.

And then she picked up the phone.

“Britter?”

“Mom? Mom! You’re there? Oh my God, you’re there.”

“I’m here honey, I’m here,” and then the words I’d waited a week for, “and she’s fine honey.”

And she was. I could hear that she was in my own mother’s laughter as both of my children climbed all over her in their excitement. I could hear, finally, my daughter’s voice mixed with my son’s, loud and strong and unafraid. “Nana! Nana!”

“Oh my God, Mom… thank you. Thank you,” the relief poured out of me in waves. I was crying and smiling and breathing big, huge, happy gulps of air all at the same time. “Thank you so much. I’m so glad. I’m so glad that you’re there. I’m so glad that they’re… that she’s…”

“…home. I know.”

And she did know. She knew. She knew them and their voices and their faces and their mannerisms and their laughter and their fears and their… everything.

She knew them, and they knew her, and they were fine. Really and truly fine, now.