Em? What’s an em? Rachel thought. Barney was Jackie and David’s son, from across the street, and Kattie’s best friend.

“What do you mean? What em?” She gently kissed Kattie’s forehead.

“My em. I got it from the Count today. We counted 11 ems. I was playing with my em and Barney came over and he took it.” A fresh batch of tears started flowing down her fleshy cheeks.

A flood of realization washed over Rachel. ‘M’ was the letter of the day on Sesame Street! Apparently, in Kattie’s dream, it had taken on a physical presence and Barney took it from her. A broad smile broke out on Rachel’s face at the utter simplicity of Kattie’s thinking but she stifled her laughter when she realized that this was as serious to Kattie as theft of one’s life savings would be to an adult.

“It’s alright, dear. Barney just borrowed your em. He probably just needed it so he could say ‘mommy’ or ‘Mickey Mouse’ or some other em word.”

“No he didn’t. He took it and stuck his tongue out at me.”

This was going to be hard!