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The door opens under my hand.

The house is warm, and it smells like formula and pine. I follow the noise down the hall, and she's on the floor with her back against the wall and a car seat on either side of her, one foot rocking each.

The front of her shirt is damp and her hair is stuck to her face. She looks up at me, and her chin starts to go.

"Hey," I say. "Which one's worse?"

"Hildie. She started it."

I kneel down and unbuckle my daughter. She's hot and stiff and furious, with her fists shaking beside her ears. I lay her along my forearm on her stomach with her cheek in the crook of my elbow and my hand under her belly, the way one of the NICU nurses showed me in August. Then I stand up.

"Go drink some water," I tell Mackie. "Then sit down somewhere that isn't the floor."

"I can't just..."

"You can. I've got her. Go."

She goes. I hear the tap run in the kitchen.

I walk Hildie slowly from the front door to the end of the hall and back, and I start to hum. I can't carry a tune, and the only Christmas song I know all the way through is "Silent Night." Aunt Hildie played it on the piano every Christmas Eve and made me stand beside the bench until I was eighteen.

Somewhere after the fourth trip down the hall, her fists finally open. She's still crying, but there's space between the cries now.

I keep walking. By the time I lose count, she's down to hiccups against my arm.

Graham is still going. Mackie has him on her shoulder in the kitchen doorway, bouncing on legs that are shaking so hard I can see them from the hall.

"Give him here."

"You've got her."

"I've got room."

She looks at me for a second, and then she brings him over. I shift Hildie up onto my shoulder and take Graham on the other arm the same way, stomach down, and the three of us go to the couch in the front room.

I sit down slowly and lean back. I get one baby on each side of my chest with my hands spread across their backs. I keep humming. Graham fights me longer. He twists against my chest, complains into my shirt, settles, then starts again.

I keep humming. Eventually his whole body goes heavy, and I get a wet sigh against my collarbone. The only sound in the house is the refrigerator and the two of them breathing.

Mackie sits down at the other end of the couch. She pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them and stares at the three of us.

"You hummed," she says.

"I did."

"You can't sing."

"No, ma'am."

Her mouth moves, almost a smile, and then her face crumples and she puts it down on her knees. Her shoulders shake without a sound. I can't reach her without waking them, so I don't move. I keep my hands on their backs and let her cry.

After a while, she lifts her head and wipes her face with the hem of her shirt..

"I didn't wake Mom," she says.

"I figured you didn't."

"She'd have gotten up."