I trudge into my empty bedroom and flop down onto the bed. I’m completely worn out. After work, I had Mom stay and babysit Chloe so I could call every number I could possibly get my hands on to try to figure out how to get Ella back. I spent hours getting transferred from department to department and then back again, only to be told there’s nothing I can do.

There’s nothing they can do.

Apparently there’s nothing anyone can do.

Their best advice was to wait and see what the outcome would be. Ella has been gone since yesterday. That’s when the ICE officers ripped a gaping black hole in our lives and took her away from us. ‘Wait and see’ doesn’t exactly cut it.

My bleary eyes settle on the alarm clock. I can’t believe it’s only a little after nine. I haven’t been this exhausted since my days in the SEALs. How can dealing with red tape and bureaucracy make me just as tired as when I did physically grueling training for sixteen hours a day?

I don’t even bother getting all tucked into bed. Instead, I yank the corner of my blanket over me so I’m wrapped up like a burrito and let my head sink into my pillow. I blink slowly. My head is pounding and the voices of all the government agents I spoke to on the phone buzz in my ears as my body drifts into sleep.

“Oh no! Daddy! Help me!” Chloe’s voice makes my eyelids pop back open as I fling back the blanket and leap from the bed. Immediately I rush to her room, my heart pounding as my suddenly very awake senses search for danger.

Tears streak down her face as she shakes like a leaf under her little blanket. “Chloe! What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

Her finger trembles as she points to her window. I cross the floor and look outside but don’t see anything.

“I saw him, Daddy.” She chokes on her words and sputters them out. “Hampy was there. He came back again.” She winces at the giant imaginary spider that I thought we’d gotten rid of for good.

Of course Hampy is back. Ella is gone. Her magic song is gone. All this confusion and sadness is too much for me, let alone a little girl. Her world has been tossed into chaos and her young brain is trying to make as much sense of all this as it can.

“Chloe, it’s okay, hon. Hampy isn’t real, remember? You just had a bad dream, sweetheart.” I sit beside her bed and my daughter scoots into my arms, clinging onto me tight.

“No, he’s real,” she insists, “I saw him on the window. Ella isn’t here and he’s not scared of her song no more.”

I rock her gently in my arms and listen to her fears.

“Sometimes dreams can feel real, but I promise you, hon, there’s no big spider like that here. I swear.” I brush her tear-soaked hair from the side of her face.

Chloe regards me skeptically. Like she wants to believe me, but she isn’t fully convinced just yet. “Dad?” Her eyebrows scrunch together.

“Yes?”

“Is Ella a bad woman? Is that why the police took her?” She sits back in her bed, waiting for me to make sense of a senseless act for her.

“No, she’s not bad at all,” I reassure her.

“Then why’d they take her?” She frowns again.

“It’s complicated.” I sigh. “The police might want Ella to go back to the country she was born in.” My lips tug down as her eyes grow wide.

“No! She can’t leave. Tell them she can stay here, with us. Don’t make her go away!” Fresh tears fall from the brim of her eyes and blot on her fuzzy pajamas.

“We don’t know if that’s going to happen yet, so let’s not get too worried about it. These things take time.” I echo the frustrating words I heard over and over on the phone today.

“But I miss her so much.” Chloe holds her hands over her heart and it almost tears mine right out of my chest.

“I know, hon. I do too. And I know she misses us.” My voice cracks. I swallow hard to get control, pushing down my own pain. “Come here.” I give her another hug and Chloe begins to calm down.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I do something bad?” she whispers against my chest, like she’s afraid of the answer.

“Not at all. Why would you say that?”

“I dunno.” Her tiny shoulders shrug. “First I had a mommy and then she died. Then I had Ella and she was taken away too. Maybe I did something bad? Maybe I can’t have any more moms.” Her brilliant blue eyes shine with tears.

“No, Chloe.” I swallow the growing lump in my throat as her question reached into my chest and tore out my heart. “You’re not bad at all. Those things have nothing to do with you, baby. You’re a perfect daughter, okay? Nothing you ever think or feel or say or do will ever make people go away. Don’t think that because it’s not true.” A tear slides down my face and I brush it away quickly, struggling to keep myself under control, to be the rock she needs. Her question was like a dagger to the gut, leaving me emotionally crumpled on the ground.

Chloe sniffles and I hold her close, rocking her in my arms as we both try to understand the dull ache that Ella’s absence has left in our lives. I don’t have the heart to explain that Ella might never be coming back. It’s too awful to even think those words. I don’t have the strength to admit it to myself that we may have both just lost a woman we loved.