Milton and Lois

            Lois and Milton’s birthdays were on the first day after the remodeling was complete. Unlike my mother, I actually took the time and money to age them properly.

            For reasons I cannot remember, I felt as though the soft sand in the playground would make the perfect place for a baby to age.

            My heart dropped, metaphorically of course, when I saw their more detailed faces. That nose, the ones my first twins shared, was nearly identical to Dedrick’s.

            I returned inside to eat cake with my husband. He could barely make conversation, being overly tired from putting my children’s needs above his own.

            I told him to get some sleep while I started to work on the toddlers’ basic skills.

            Lois was too distracted by the xylophone to put forward much progress in speaking. I let her play with the little scale while I went to look for her brother.

            Milton had decided that the mailbox was an appropriate place for a toddler to be.

            Each time I returned him inside, he would crawl out to the edge of the yard again. I eventually quit trying and simply taught him how to walk there.

            I was too worn to realize what I was doing until the voices in my head began to shout at me. “Get him out of the street, Aspen!”

“And you call me an awful parent.”

            I decided upon placing the toddlers in the playpen upstairs until I was rested enough to be a mother again. “Locking babies in a cage! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Be quiet Mother, I have twice as many as you did.”

            “I hope that lard somehow managed to produce better looking kids. I think the girl has a lazy eye!”

            At first, I had only planned to use the playpen while Kyle and I needed rest. Then I realized that, with twins, it made sense to keep one in there while I worked with the other.

            Eventually, it simply became a crutch. I remained a better parent than Mother though, because I was at least in the same room as them. And I would take breaks from my logic activities to visit them.

            Nearly every night, Dedrick would proposition me for dates over the phone, despite the gossip that he had girlfriend.

            Any word from him deeply unsettled me. If Kyle ever laid eyes on Dedrick, would he be able to spot the similarities between him and the older twins?