Millie steps out of my touch to move between them. Twin boys fight. A lot. Another reason why it’s a good thing grown-ups in the house—and I’m including Emmett here—outnumber them.
“Babies?!I don’t see any babies.” Millie looks back at me over their heads, wearing a mock confused expression. “Do you see any babies,mi amor?”
Grinning, I shake my head. The boys have turned their attention to her, all smiles. They know what’s coming. “I don’t see anybabies,”I say, emphasizing the word.
Millie takes a sniff. “I certainly don’tsmellany babies.” She sniffs Mateo’s head before turning and doing the same to Marco. They both giggle as her nose tickles through their hair.“Pew!No, these smell nothing like babies. Babies smell like clean laundry and cotton candy.”
She sniffs again, as animated as a Sesame Street puppet. Giggles bubble over. Millie shakes her head, looking confounded.
“You smell them, honey. I can’t figure it out.”
I grab Marco by his tiny shoulders, he squeals and then shrieks when I stick my nose into the hollow of his armpit, tickling him. Sweat. Dog. Dirt. This kid needs a bath.
“Ooph.”I pull a face. “That’s no baby, Mama.” Wide-eyed with anticipation and a little wild terror, Mateo waits his turn. I grab one wrist and whip it into the air. He laughs so hard, he sags against the island. Alex, Mattie, and Emmett are laughing now too. I’m fighting to keep my own tremors in check, staying deadpan, but I’ve got nothing on Millie. That woman almost never breaks character.
“Put your nose way in there, Daddy. Tell me what that is,” she says with clinical seriousness. It’s theway in therethat sets me off. I have to hide my face against Mateo’s shirt so they can’t see I’m laughing. But my babies are laughing so hard I’m afraid they’ll fall off the stools.
Again, I smell sweat, dog, and dirt. “Ugh,” I manage through my stifled laughter. “I’m… speechless.”
Millie moves behind Marco, guarding him in case he lists any more to the right. “Honey,” she says sounding solemn, and tucking her red hair behind her ears as if she’s about to deliver bad news. “It’s worse than I thought.”
Dios mío,I love her so much. She makes every day so much fun. Just like this. I swallow, nodding. “Tell me. I can take it.”
She faces me with a mad scientist gleam in her eye. “It’s two… Stinky.... Sweaty… Dirty…” She jerks her gaze from me and gives her crazed look to each of our sons, and they dissolve in hysterics all over again. “Little boys!”
“No!” I gasp, pretending horror.
“YES!” Both boys shout.
Millie closes her eyes, nodding. “Yes,” she whispers somberly. She opens her eyes, pressing her lips together with mock regret. “And there’s just one thing you can do with their kind.”
“What?” Mateo asks, breathless.
Millie reaches out and cups each boy’s chin. “Give them a bath.”
Matching blue eyes widen in dread. “No!” They bellow in twin cries. Emmett slides two plates across the island, a fruity, nutty stay of execution.
“Not yet, but after you’ve had your banana and peanut butter,” Millie says, the ring of finality in her words.
The boys don’t like it, and they’ll fuss again in a few minutes, but now, their world is all banana and peanut butter goodness.
* * *
Ten minutes later,my little family is upstairs in the bathroom Emmett and Harry used to share, and Millie is drawing a bath for our boys. Emmett has claimed the guest suite, the one Millie slept in when I first met her. It gives him a little more space and privacy—when the twins aren’t barging in on him.
When we got home from our honeymoon, a week-long trip to Costa Rica right after Christmas, the kids—no doubt with help from Mami, Aunt Lucinda, and my cousins—had moved Millie and me into the downstairs master suite. Her parent’s old bedroom.
It was the best wedding present they could have given us. The thought had crossed my mind to move in there eventually, but I would have never asked, never wanting to suggest a move Millie and her siblings weren’t ready for.
But after a week of living as husband and wife, nearly naked in a bungalow with an empty beach in front of us and the rain forest behind us, I had no idea how we’d go back upstairs with our room just a few doors down from Harry, Mattie, and Emmett.
It was Mattie’s idea, Mami had told me, and her brothers needed no convincing. The memory of my sister-in-law’s thoughtfulness brings me back to the present. I look at my wife, who is leaning over the tub, testing the water temperature against her palm. The boys are choosing bath toys from the bucket under the sink.
“Should we offer them a place to stay here?”
Millie’s eyes widen. “Mattie and Alex?”
“It’s her home too.”
