“Mom Never Sleeps” Mom never slept until we did. That was the rule. She would sit in the old armchair outside our bedrooms, hands folded neatly in her lap, eyes fixed on the floor. No matter how tired she looked, no matter how heavy her eyelids grew, she never closed them—not until she was sure we were both asleep. “Why do you stay up, Mom?” my little brother, Tommy, asked one night. “To keep you safe,”