Christmas Eve found me fourteen hours into a sixteen-hour double shift in the emergency room. I had volunteered so a younger nurse with small children could spend the holiday at home, and the only thing keeping me going was imagining my sixteen-year-old daughter Abby celebrating at my parents’ house.
It was her first year driving herself to our traditional Christmas Eve gathering, and she had been ridiculously excited about it. I pictured her surrounded by grandparents, aunts, cousins, Christmas lights, and the smell of my mother’s turkey while I finished caring for patients.
By the time I clocked out at 11:15 p.m., exhaustion had settled into every bone in my body. I drove home expecting an empty house and a few hours of sleep before joining everyone on Christmas morning.
The moment I opened the front door, I knew something was wrong. Abby’s snow-covered boots were beside the entrance, her coat had been dropped across the sofa, and the overnight bag she had carefully packed was still zipped on the floor.
