Three years after that first kiss on Edward’s porch, Roesha woke in her own living room to the sound of Dominic losing an argument in a whisper.
“I can make pancakes one-handed,” he said.
“You can,” Mia whispered back. “But can you flip them?”
Roesha opened her eyes. The sun had reached the quilt on the couch, warming a patch over her knees. Dominic stood in the kitchen doorway with their newborn son Luca tucked into the crook of his arm. Mia wore his apron, folded twice at the waist. From the rug, Sophia held up two paper crowns, each small enough to fit around an orange.
“I made one for Luca and one for Micah,” she announced, forgetting to whisper. “But we can put them next to the babies. Mom said nothing goes on their heads unless you say it’s okay.”
“Next to them is perfect,” Roesha said.
Micah stirred in the bassinet at her elbow. She reached down and rested a finger in his palm. His grip closed, fierce and sudden. At six days old, he already looked offended when the world moved without consulting him.
“Your brother has an opinion,” she told Sophia.
“Which brother?”
Roesha smiled. She liked hearing the question. She hoped it would take her a long time to get used to it.
Clara had dropped the girls off before breakfast with a bag of clean sleepers and a library book Sophia insisted the twins needed to hear. She’d stayed long enough to drink half a cup of coffee and show Dominic which pocket of Mia’s backpack held her science project. When Sophia asked if she could stay through dinner, Clara and Dominic had pulled out their phones and worked it out over the kitchen counter. Roesha remembered the hospital waiting room, the paper cup Clara had set on the floor because her hands were shaking. She remembered the promise they’d made her there. The first time she and Dominic had been ready to tell the girls they were together, they had gone to Clara first. Today, Clara had kissed both girls goodbye and asked them to bring her a picture of the crowns.
Mia brought a pancake over on a small plate. It had two pointed ears and one blueberry where its nose ought to be.
“It’s a wolf,” she said.
Dominic looked over her shoulder. “I thought it was a rabbit.”
“You can make your own pancake, Dad.”
“I was informed I couldn’t.”
Mia grinned and leaned her head against his arm. He kissed the top of her hair, then asked if she still wanted him at her school presentation on Tuesday. She said yes and told him exactly where he was allowed to sit. He listened with the seriousness he usually reserved for a pack briefing.
Later, Mia settled beside Roesha with a pillow across her lap and held Luca while Sophia read to Micah. Sophia stumbled over a word, started the sentence again, and kept going. Dominic sat down beside Roesha and put two mugs of tea on the table. The handle of hers faced her good hand. He’d been doing that since the night they brought the boys home, when she’d told him how sore her wrist was from holding Micah through a whole feed.
“Remember when you asked me if I wanted to know who you were when nobody was bleeding?” she asked.
“I was hoping you’d forgotten how long it took me to get that sentence out.”
“I remember every word.”
She remembered other things, too. The tribunal doors coming off their hinges. Clara demanding the right to speak for herself. Dominic admitting how badly he wanted Roesha to choose him, and how long it had taken him to learn to leave that choice in her hands. There had been months when she could imagine loving him for the rest of her life and still couldn’t see how the two of them would get through the next week.
Dominic slid his hand under hers. Across the room, Sophia had reached the last page. She closed the book and tucked it beside the crowns.
“Can we do this again next Thursday?” she asked.
“Pancakes?” Dominic said.
“All of it.”
Roesha felt his fingers tighten around hers. She looked at Mia with Luca asleep in her lap, at Sophia already opening the book to the first page for Micah. There was batter on the counter and a basket of clean laundry nobody had folded. In an hour one of the boys would wake hungry, and Dominic would ask which one had eaten last, though they’d both written it down.
“Next Thursday,” Roesha said.
Sophia started the story again. This time, when she got to the hard word, Mia helped her sound it out. Roesha put her head on Dominic’s shoulder and listened to the girls read to their brothers.