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I gasp and turn back to the blonde menace attached to my leg. “Lily! That wasn’t nice.”
She snickers, completely unfazed.
“Maybe I should steal that sticker away from you.” I make a dramatic crab hand and lunge for her sleeve. She shrieks and takes off around the island. My legs are dead tired, but I follow her, lunging and reaching for her sticker until Lily and Brady are both giggling like little maniacs.
“You don’t deserve that sticker!” I tease.
Lily sticks her tongue out at me. “I’m a star!”
As Lily sprints by the island, Brady kicks his leg out. She dodges, but I scoop her up and throw her over my shoulder.
“Now, I’m going to eat your legs,” I growl, taking gummy bites of her ticklish sides.
She squeals and Brady cheers. “Eat her! Eat her!”
“Can we not? I have a headache.”
Lana’s voice sucks all the joy out of the room instantly.
She walks into the kitchen with her hand pressed to her forehead. Her eyes are almost closed, open just enough so that she can reach for her glass water bottle on the countertop.
Lily and Brady are still trying to play and wrestle, but I make a big show of pressing my heels together and zipping my lips closed. It’s our code for “the silent game.” It never lasts more than thirty seconds, but it helps calm them down after I’ve got their engines revving.
“Sorry about your headache,” I say. “But dinner smells amazing. What are you making?”
Lana frowns and looks around. “Anna?”
An older woman with a green frilly apron on comes out of the pantry holding cans of tomatoes and pasta. “Yes, Mrs. Corden?”
“Mitchell won’t be eating with us tonight, so one less for dinner.” Lana points to me. “Unless you’re planning to stay?”
“I always have time for free food.”
Lana’s mouth pinches just a bit. Just enough for me to notice. “Then never mind. It’ll be the same number for dinner, Anna.”
“I can make Mr. Corden a plate,” she offers. “I’ll put it in the fridge and—”
“He’ll be fine without.” Lana leans back against the counter and pinches her forehead with her thumb and forefinger. “Christ, I need to lie down.”
I nudge her away from the counter and towards the door. “Go for it. Take a nap. I’ll take care of things down here. When dinner is ready, I’ll call you down.”
“Don’t, actually,” she says. “If I’m awake, I’ll come down. If not…”
“I’ll put the kids to bed,” I offer, practically dropping to the floor in exhaustion at just the thought. Lily and Brady are a lot to handle on a normal day. On a day where I spent eight hours dusting window blinds and mopping marble, it might kill me.
But I can’t stand the idea that my sister might think I’m useless. I mean, she already thinks that, but I can’t stand the idea of making her think she’s right about it.
So I play with Lily and Brady until dinner. We build castles with magnetic tiles and then destroy them with toy dinosaurs. We slide down the hallway in our socks, executing a rescue mission every time someone falls down. By the end, both kids are falling on purpose so I have to drag them by their little arms to the top of the hallway just for them to “slip” again.
Dinner is a reprieve. Physically, at least. I get to sit down, which is amazing for my tired legs. But coaxing dinner into two four-year-old stomachs requires a tremendous amount of coercion, compromise, and begging. I never thought the words"I'll do anything for you to take one bite of meatball"would come out of my mouth so many times in one evening.
“Let’s watch an episode of something,” I announce the second we’re done with dinner. “What show do you two like?”
“Pup Powers!” Lily shouts as Brady cries, “Alphanauts!”
I spend ten minutes trying to get them to agree before I give up and hit the random shuffle button on the kids profile of the smart TV. Within seconds, they both settle in to watch a show about singing tortoises who run their own restaurant. Charming.
By the time we make it up to their bedrooms with teeth brushed and pajamas on, I’m falling asleep while I’m reading.
