Good evening, and welcome back to Nighty Night with Robbie Hadjadri. Bedtime stories to keep you awake.

I'm DJ Lubel, the shows producer. Tonight's tale shows us what fear, panic, and despair can do to our realities. Please enjoy home safe.

A steady stream of sweat trickled down the back of Anna's neck down, down until it met her damp cotton shirt, which was already stuck to her body.

It wasn't yet noon, but the Kentucky sun was high in the sky, and the kitchen was slowly turning into an oven.

July's were brutal in these parts, but Anna wouldn't trade in her little farm for anything.

It had taken years to convince Cole to move from the big city to the country, begging him to think about the boys, about the fresh air and big skies, and the opportunity to raise a family in a safe place.

She didn't miss Atlanta one bit, hated the rush and noise and housing costs that meant they couldn't even afford a yard for the boys to plan.

But here, here they had ten acres of pasture, woods, wide open spaces, miles from the closest neighbor.

Here the boys helped plant and harvest their modest garden, fed the chickens and gathered eggs, discovered flowers and insects they'd never seen before, climbed trees, and explored the creeks,

crisscrossing the boundaries of the property.

True, they didn't have all the amenities here, no big shopping mall close by, no mega movie theater or cool bistros,

not a single sushi restaurant for 50 miles at least, but these were small sacrifices for the life she wanted.

One where her and Cole and the boys connected over jars of fireflies and camping on the wraparound porch on warm nights.

On days like this when the air conditioner was on the fritz and it felt like she could barely breathe, she tried to count her blessings and remember why they moved here.

Anna glanced over at Kyle, who sat coloring on the floor in his underwear. The four-year-old was nothing like his older brother.

Brandon was the quiet one, a nine-year-old boy with a soul of a wise old man. She often found him tucked into odd corners of the house or the old barn reading,

or up late at night, quietly looking through the telescope in his room as it pointed to a country sky full of more stars than she ever knew existed.

Kyle on the other hand could barely sit still or stay quiet. He bounced like a ball all over the house, was constantly falling down steps and tearing holes in his hand me down close.

It was a miracle he had been quietly coloring for the past half an hour. The heat was likely wearing him out too.

Anna turned back to the cookbook, her finger tracing the lines in the pound cake recipe, pound cake with fresh berries and cream.

That would be this week's Friday night dessert. She only made desserts on Fridays and made enough for Saturday brunches, but she didn't believe in having dessert every day.

The rest of the week was for fruit when the sweet tooth hit, fruit or fresh lemonade.

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