Just as I had on their first birthday, I awoke with the memory of their birth fresh in my mind. I wondered if it would be that way for the rest of my life, and decided that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

I had barely rubbed the sleep from my eyes when my door flew open and Vincent fell flat on his face. He looked up at me with a grin, his wild blond curls falling over his chubby little face.

“Mama!” he squealed, pushing himself up and running across the room to slam headlong into my mattress.

“Come here before you concuss yourself,” I laughed. I scooped him up and planted a raspberry on his belly, making him squeal again.

“Mama! Mama, up!” Frida called from the nursery.

“Did you abandon your sister?” I asked Vincent in a playfully shocked tone.

He giggled maniacally, and I couldn’t help but laugh with him. Tossing him over my shoulder, I shuffled around the corner in my tattered pajamas to find Frida scowling from her crib. Smaller and less athletic than her brother, my daughter frequently found herself stuck in place while Vincent moved with terrifying freedom through the world.

“Up! Up! Up!” Frida bounced on her toes with her little arms waving in the air. I scooped her up into my free arm and kissed her soundly on the forehead. Her strawberry-blond curls tickled my nose, making me sneeze.

Both kids thought it was absolutely hilarious. Their shrieking laughter roused my mom, who trudged blearily out of her room, wrapped in the same fuzzy pink bathrobe that she had worn when I was little.

“Didn’t I buy you a new robe last Christmas?” I asked, glancing pointedly at the threadbare waist and frayed hem.

“You did,” she said through a yawn. “But I like this one. It’s all broken-in already.”

“Definitely broken,” I teased.

She made a face at me and took Vincent from my arms before he climbed clear over my shoulder to tumble down the stairs. Coffee and fruit were on the menu for me, cheerios and apple juice for the twins, and Mom would eventually work her way around to an English muffin. It was a morning routine I enjoyed, because it gave me a solid twenty minutes in the morning when I didn’t have to decide anything.

“Ready for today?” Mom asked me.

“Ready to entertain a dozen toddlers and their parents? Not even,” I laughed. “I just hope Jenna gets here before the horde arrives.”

“Oh, it’ll be easy. Easier than all the babysitting you do. At least their parents will be here.”

“Babysitting gives me two, three extra kids at a time. A birthday party…”

“Birday?” Vincent asked, his sharp little eyes locking onto mine.

“Yeah, buddy, it’s your birthday today! Your friends are all coming over, and you’re going to get cake and presents.”

He stopped listening halfway through my sentence, distracted by a stray cheerio. I shrugged and sipped my coffee.

“Baby parties aren’t really for the babies anyway,” Mom whispered. “We parents just like inflicting the chaos on ourselves. It makes the rest of the year seem easy in comparison.”

I grinned at her assessment of the situation.

As the coffee swirled around my brain, activating all of my to-do lists, it was like the whole world snapped into focus. Good, I thought. If I can just maintain this level of focus until three, maybe we’ll all survive the party.

“I need to finish up that dress for Sasha. Can you handle the twins for an hour?”

“You need to do that now? We still have to get the place ready for the party!” Mom slathered strawberry jam on her muffin with excessive force, ripping through the delicate little bread pockets.

“She wants to take it home with her today after the party. If I don’t do it now, I’m not going to have another chance. It’s only, what, seven thirty? We’ll have time to set up.”

“If you say so,” Mom sighed. “Don’t get caught up in one of your artistic fevers, or we’ll never get it done in time.”

“I won’t, I promise. You two be good for Gran, I’ll be back in a little bit.”

I inhaled deeply as I stepped into the garage. Art permeated the very air in here, as the scents of ink and emulsifier clung to everything, accented by the dusty aroma of thrift store fabric. Sasha’s long sun dress hung on the center rolling rack, one of six garments that I was in the middle of making. Complex designs danced across the clothes in various stages of completion, and Sasha’s had just one part left before it was finished.

I examined my work from the previous few days. Green vines snaked up the dress from the hem, accented by little blue curls. Bright yellow dots swept across the tops of the vines, the base for the magenta blossoms which still needed doing.

I slid the dress over the repurposed ironing board until the yellow dots were centered exactly where I needed them. Leaving it, I moved to the dark room that my Mom—after several weeks of resisting—had finally let me build in one corner of the garage. As I turned on the light, the deep red glow warmed my creative juices. In this space, there were no broken hearts, no fatherless children, no sadness at all. There was only art.

I burned the silhouette onto the screen, meditating in my quiet place while it cured. Instinct—developed through nearly two years of careful honing—told me when to take the image out from under the lamp. Rinsing the screen brought another wave of calm; I was centered, secure.

I would never tell my mother, but my procrastination on this dress had been deliberate. If I was going to make it through this day with my sanity intact, I needed this time in this place. My well of patience was only filled by the deep silence and slow, firm, routine of creation.

Ink bled through the screen, penetrating the thin fabric of the dress below. Little magenta petals brought the design to life, creating a field of impressionistic flowers across the skirt. They would dance when she twirled and wave when she walked, turning her every movement into a breeze. I took my time with it, making sure I got it just right; I wanted this to be perfect. Sasha was the mom all the other moms looked to for shopping advice, and I wanted her tongue wagging in my favor.

I sighed happily as I finished the last flower, then checked the time. Eight forty-five. Mom would forgive the extra few minutes as long as I busted my butt to set up for the party.

I turned on my little second-hand oven and let it preheat while I cleaned up. The screen took a chemical bath to remove the stencil, and the squeegee was scrubbed within an inch of its life. Even the cleanup routine was a bit meditative.

When the oven was hot, I baked the dress. A silicone tray protected the thin fabric from the hot metal rack. This part always set my nerves on edge; too little time and the design would fade. Too much time and it would bubble, any more time and the dress would catch fire. I had to remind myself to breathe as I glued my eyes to the window. Four minutes and fifty-two seconds later, I pulled the dress out of the oven.

“Perfect.”

At that same moment, a shriek hit my ears at just the right frequency to make me panic. Tossing the dress over the rolling rack, I dashed out of the garage and into the kitchen. Vincent was wailing and holding his head as my mom struggled to hold him.

“He ran under the table,” she explained breathlessly, her hair and eyes as wild as my son. “Too tall to manage it.”

“Come here, baby,” I said, holding out my hands.

He launched himself through the air, forcing me to catch him before he face-planted on the tile floor. He buried his face in my chest and sobbed as Frida looked on with wide blue eyes and a thumb in her mouth.

“He’s okay, Frida,” I told her as I combed his thick hair away from the bump to check for blood. “Yeah, you’re okay, buddy.”

His screams shuddered to a halt; then, he lifted his head so fast he nearly head-butted me in the jaw. He slapped his two pudgy hands on my cheeks and looked deep into my eyes. The familiar lump rose in my throat as I saw Miles reflected in Vincent’s perfect little face. I swallowed it—which was getting easier as time went by, but I doubted it would ever really be easy—and kissed his forehead.

“No running in the house,” I told him firmly.

He grinned at me and wriggled in my arms. I put him down so I wouldn’t drop him, and turned to my mom.

“Where’s the to-do list?”

“Right here.” She puffed out her cheeks and swept the list up off the table. “Okay, so we need to get pizzas and chips, pick up the cake and balloons, set up the ball pit, fence off the lawn, set up the bubbles, and make the punch.”

“Great. I’ll take Vincent and run the errands if you watch Frida and get started here.”

She tried to hide her relief, but failed. She was still a few years short of fifty and had plenty of energy for most kids, but Vincent was a special kind of trouble, and he managed to exhaust both of us most days.

Splitting the kids and the chores up allowed us to have the house set up half an hour before the first kid toddled to the door with his hand wrapped around his mother’s finger.

“Hi, Charlie! Hi Mary, how are you?”

Vincent toddled up behind me and grabbed Charlie’s hand. Together, the two boys made for the living room in that weaving, half-drunk sort of way that toddlers run.

“Oh, thank God,” Mary said under her breath as she shot me a grateful smile.

“Long day?” I asked.

“Long year,” she said as she stepped inside. “I swear, he’s gotten clingier since I went back to work. He wasn’t exactly standoffish before, you know? God, you’re lucky.”

Startled, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know, just that you don’t have to work.”

I smiled tightly. “I do work,” I reminded her.

“Oh? You don’t mean those crafts you’re always doing? Or the babysitting? Come on, Shelley, that’s not really work. Not the same way! You don’t have to leave the kids, for one thing. And honestly, isn’t that more like a hobby? You aren’t exactly making a living at it.”

My sharp retort was delayed by the arrival of Jill and her mother April. April and I had been friends in high school, and had picked up right where we left off when I moved back to Monterey. She smiled sunnily at me as she released Jill to go find the other kids.

“Hey chick! How’s business?”

“Booming,” I told her as I embraced her warmly. “Just finished a new piece this morning.”

“On top of all this?” she asked, sweeping an arm to take in the festooned house. “Girl, I wish I had your stamina.”

“Shelley, don’t let her lie to you; this girl can go for days.” April’s husband Dean grabbed her from behind and nuzzled her neck with his fuzzy beard. She squealed and slapped him, and I rolled my eyes. They always had been loudly affectionate, and I still found it amusing after all these years.

“I didn’t mean like that, Dean,” she said exasperatedly. “I meant like Shelley, with her passion for screen printing of all things. Not that there’s anything wrong with screen printing, I just wish I had passion like that for…well, anything.”

“Aw,” Dean pouted.

“Again, not like that,” she shook her head at him, then kissed him firmly. “Go play with the kids.”

He beamed at her and trotted away.

“He listens so much better than he used to,” I said, my eyes twinkling.

“Yeah, gotta get them trained early. They’re virtually unbreakable after they can legally drink.”

We shared a laugh and she stood with me by the door while I greeted more parents and their children.

“Bet you’re not thrilled to be back in this place,” she said with a conspiratorial glance. “I guess you’re planning to make a break for it as soon as the kids are in school, right?”

Her question hung in the air as I answered the door for three kids I babysat regularly and their poor harried mother.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s starting to grow on me. Don’t get me wrong, this town is still as exciting as a bowl of oatmeal, but…” I shrugged, gazing out the door at the line of unlocked cars parked on the quiet, sunny street. “That’s kind of what I like about it. I don’t have to worry about the kids growing up here. There’s so little trouble for them to get into, you know?”

“True,” she said pensively. “I guess the responsible thing would be to stick around until they grow up.”

“Don’t sound so depressed about it,” I laughed. “Why, were you thinking about leaving?”

“Only all the time,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. “I don’t know, I think having Danni right out of high school sort of threw me. I had all these big plans to see the world, and then suddenly, I was a mother. I never had the chance to get homesick, you know?”

I did know, but I only had the chance to send her an understanding smile before the living room exploded with the offended shrieks of toddlers.

April and I hurried out together to see what the trouble was, and the chaos lasted up until the minute lunch was served. Mom had taken the time to cut the pizzas into half-bite-sized bits for the little ones, which was as much a curse as it was a blessing, since smaller bits made better projectiles.

Jenna arrived in the middle of lunch, and I answered the door.

“You have pizza stuck to your forehead,” she told me.

“Oh. Thanks. How was your drive? Did Anita come with you?”

Jenna gave me a look that was just shy of a death glare. “She did not.”

Overwhelmed with children and mess, I was oblivious to what she wasn’t saying. “That’s too bad. It’s a long drive to make on your own. Why couldn’t she make it?”

“Because she was caught with her hand in someone else’s cookie jar,” Jenna seethed.

It finally registered for me. “Oh. Oh! Oh, I’m sorry, Jenna.”

“Thanks. I’m not too broken up about it. She liked to keep ferrets, and I was not looking forward to the ‘moving in together’ conversation.” She shuddered violently and I laughed.

A chorus of “Oh, no!” met my ear from the dining room, and I hurried away to manage the latest spill. The pizza was mostly eaten or destroyed at this point, so with the help of a few other parents I cleaned up, turning over the dining room for cake. The kids were getting restless in their chairs, so I hurried to retrieve the double-chocolate cake for the twins.

The way their little faces lit up just about broke my heart. Those blue eyes blazing with excitement in the low light, they were the very image of their father.

I sang to them around the lump in my throat, but was quickly losing my composure. As soon as they blew out the candles, I pressed the knife into my mom’s hand and fled to the kitchen. I couldn’t bear to have the whole neighborhood see me cry, and I just couldn’t hold it back any longer.

“I was wondering how long it would take for you to break,” my mom said sympathetically when she walked in several minutes later. “There must be a dozen toddlers out there. Maybe more. That’s too much for anybody to take on.”

“Oh, it’s not the kids,” I sniffed, wiping my eyes. “Not really.”

She sat down across from me and held my hand, worry shining in her eyes. “Then what is it, honey? What’s wrong?”

His name caught in my throat, a dam holding back a flood of tears. It hurt my heart to keep it there, but I knew it would break all over again if I let it fall. I took the heartbreak. The constant ache had hurt me enough for one lifetime.

“It’s Miles,” I sobbed as the floodgates came crashing down. “He should be here! He should see them; he should know them! How can he sleep at night knowing that they’re out here, fatherless, while he runs around the country with gold-digging models and never…never…they’re his! How can he?”

Tears washed away my babbling words and I dissolved once more into sobs. Mom moved around the table to wrap her arms around me, and I buried my face in her shoulder.

“Shelley, we swore that we wouldn’t speak that name in this house. Remember what happened last time? When he was the world’s most eligible billionaire or whatever, and had that candied giraffe on his arm? You just about lost your mind and called him. He isn’t worth your pain, my love. He isn’t worth your tears.”

She was right. He wasn’t. But, damn it, the twins were worth his time. I fed my despair into the furnace of my anger, letting the heat dry my eyes.

“You’re right,” I told her. My voice was still shaky and I cleared my throat. “You’re absolutely right. He isn’t worth that, any of it.”

I cleaned my face and hugged her again, grateful that she and I had managed to build a solid relationship after all. Before I went away to college, I’d never thought that would happen.

Just as I was steadying myself to brave the horde of children again, Jenna popped into the room, virtually vibrating with excitement.

“You are never going to guess what just happened,” she gushed. “I just got a call from the newspaper to tell me that they just got a call from the California Press Association—”

“Who did they get a call from?” I asked.

“Oh shut up,” Jenna laughed. “I’ve been named tech journalist of the year!”

“Oh my God!” I jumped on her with a bear hug, squeezing the breath out of her. “That’s super exciting! Are you excited? You should be excited; that’s exciting!”

“Shelley, don’t suffocate your sister. Congratulations, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Jenna said as her face turned from tomato red back to her usual pinkish glow. “Best part is, there’s this awards ceremony. Very glamorous, a lot of who’s-who of the tech world. I’m going to be doing some monstrous networking, and I have the best dress in the world for it picked out already. Shelley, how would you like to be my plus-one to this thing? Since I’m a single woman once more as of today—thanks, Anita—I don’t want to go by myself, and you’d be better company anyway.”

Vincent squealed in delight from the next room, answered by groaning parents. I didn’t want to imagine what he’d done to get such a reaction, but I figured it was something messy or destructive. It usually was.

“Where is the ceremony?” I asked hesitantly.

“San Bravado, next week. You and I will go, then spend the night in a fancy hotel on the newspaper’s dime. You’ll flirt with rich young men, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a cute assistant in desperate need of some attention…we’ll have a great time!”

It did sound like a great time, in spite of the idea that I might have to share a room with Jenna and one of her conquests. But San Bravado…

“It’s too far away,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve got the kids.”

Jenna cast a pleading look to our mother.

“Shelley, go,” Mom said. “You’ve been in mommy mode for way too long. Go, have some fun! You’re only twenty-five; you can’t bury yourself yet. Trust me, honey—you need this.”

“You so do,” Jenna agreed emphatically. “When was the last time you got dressed up? I mean really dressed up.”

“I… God, I can’t even remember.” It was easier to say that than the truth, which was that the last time I’d gotten dressed up, I’d subsequently been stood up and had then discovered that I was knocked up. An involuntary shudder shook me at the memory.

“Exactly,” Jenna said firmly. “You’re drowning under mom duties, Shell. Come with me. Please?”

“But Vincent…”

“Oh, I complain a lot, but he’s not that bad,” my mom intercepted. “I just gotta be quicker than him, is all. Don’t worry about a thing, Shelley; I can take care of the kids for a night or two.”

I was feeling the pressure from all sides. Still, I hadn’t been away from the kids overnight…ever, I realized. It made me nervous. Just then, Frida began banging her spoon on the table.

“Mama! Mama! Up! Mama, up!”

“Yes,” I told Jenna quickly. “Yes, I’ll come.”