I didn’t say anything at first.
I just stood there in the hallway holding that little pink overnight bag while my mother-in-law leaned over my youngest with a spoon in her hand.
Not medicine.
Honey.
Mixed into a paper cup with something bright orange floating inside it.
My oldest daughter saw me first and sat straight up so fast she knocked her blanket onto the floor.
“Grandma said it helps us sleep,” she whispered.
My mother-in-law froze when she realized I was back. Then she smiled too quickly and started explaining before I even asked anything.
“It’s natural,” she said. “Just vitamins and elderberry syrup. Their immune systems are weak because you keep them indoors too much.”
But there were four empty nighttime cold medicine bottles sitting open beside the sink.
Children’s dosage.
All nearly gone.
I packed the girls into the car without arguing. My youngest fell asleep before we even reached the highway exit.
Not normal sleep.
Heavy sleep.
I called our pediatrician from a gas station parking lot outside Dalton because something in my stomach would not settle right.
The doctor asked one question that made my hands start shaking on the steering wheel.
“How long has this been happening after overnight visits?”
Then she told me to check the expiration dates on any medicine my mother-in-law had been giving them.
That night I dumped the overnight bag onto my kitchen table.
Pajamas. Coloring books. Toothbrushes.
And buried at the bottom was a pharmacy receipt dated three years earlier.
Not my mother-in-law’s name.
Mine.