I’m 79 now, nearly 80, and I’ve been a teacher my whole life, retired yes, but a teacher nonetheless, you don’t just turn that off, the need to… nurture, to guide, to feel useful. It’s a powerful drive, an almost primal thing, particularly for someone like me who never had her own. Children, I mean. Always the classroom, always the other people’s little ones, and then they leave, and you’re left with… the quiet. The very, very quiet. And then the Millers moved in, you know, young family, two little ones, a boy and a girl, barely out of diapers, and they were so sweet at first, all "Mrs. Davison, you're such a BLESSING," and "We just don't know what we'd do without you," and I believed it, you know, I truly did, that I was a blessing, a godsend, a little guardian angel for those children who needed a steady hand. They were always a bit... spirited, I’d call it, never really learned how to manage themselves, classic executive function deficits really, but I thought, *I* can help, *I* know how to create structure, how to foster self-regulation, after all, I’ve done it for thousands of children over four decades. But it just… snowballed. It went from a few hours here and there, a quick trip to the grocery store for Sarah, to every single day, every day, from the moment they wake up until almost bedtime, "Mrs. Davison, just for an hour," turns into six, turns into "Oh, are you still here? We thought you’d gone home!" and the children are just… they’re a whirlwind, a force of nature, honestly. Toys everywhere, food on the walls, screaming at each other, and they call it "playing," but it’s just… chaos. Controlled chaos, I try to tell myself, but it feels more like being trapped in a hurricane with no shelter and no way out. And I’m tired, so tired, my bones ache, my head throbs, and I just want to sit and read my book, or watch my program, or just have some blessed quiet, but the doorbell rings again, and there they are, faces pressed to the glass, "Mrs. Davison! Can we play?" And I never say no. Not once. Because what would they think? What would *she* think? Sarah, I mean. That I’m not helpful, that I’m not the kind, sweet, retired teacher who loves children. That I’m… selfish. Because that’s the fear, isn’t it? That if you stop being useful, if you stop being the one who always says yes, then you just… disappear. You become invisible. And I don’t want to be invisible. So I smile, and I say, "Of course, darlings, come on in," and I open the door to another day of noise and sticky fingers and never-ending demands, and I hear my own voice, thin and reedy, trying to be cheerful, trying to be present, while inside I’m just… fading. A slow, gentle dissipation, like smoke into the city air. And I wonder, sometimes, if they even notice, or if they’re just so used to me being there, a permanent fixture, like the lamppost on the corner, always on, always reliable, until one day it just… burns out. And no one really even cares.