As an early morning draft skimmed my shoulders, I reached down to pull the extra blanket back up around my chin. Through the haze of semi-consciousness, I tried to reconcile the knobbly feel of the blanket my fingers had found with my recollection of where we were. I had anticipated feeling the cold slipperiness of the covers in our hotel at Trakai. Clearly, we weren’t there. We weren’t at Rob and Tracy’s either; I didn’t feel the intricate stitching of their heirloom quilt. This blanket felt soft, but not as soft as the one that Brenda made for Mom and Dad’s bed, so we couldn’t be in Ladysmith. I gave the blanket another tug, and knew right away that we weren’t at Krista’s place. This blanket was distinctly missing the glorious, crushing weight of the sleeping bag that covered the bed in her basement. There was no puffy duvet like the one in the motor home at Darwell, and no scratchy, wooly feel of the blankets in our tower room in Ireland. My fingers laced through the holes in the blanket’s crocheted design, and I knew I wouldn’t be waking up to the smell of coffee and the luxurious comfort of our bed in Texas.

As the wistful fog of sleep and remembrance began to clear, I realized – in a simultaneous sigh of sadness and relief – that I was at home.