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Their wild natures warmed my heart, even if they sometimes taxed my energy budget.
“Oh, look at her. Okay, can you carefully take her out front where Verb can’t get her, and place her on one of the bushes?” I asked.
And someone automatically reached for the younger two kids’ hands, knowing the rules about being in the front yard.
Then they were off, just as my mom came out of the back door in a light blue apron covered in flour.
The baby, done nursing, was quickly snatched up by her, getting placed on a shoulder for some gentle burping as I buttoned up my dress.
“You know, I always wondered if I wanted another baby,” she admitted to me, smiling as she got a burp, then dropping down in the rocking chair next to mine.
“Really? You never told me that.”
“I think we all wonder. As it turns out, though, one was the right number for me. But being a grandma to five—or more—she said, giving me a little knowing smirk, has been amazing.”
“They love you,” I told her.
Because they all did.
Grandma Sunshine and her endless supply of baked goods.
Then Grandma Giulia with her trays of their favorite pasta dishes.
I barely ever had to cook between the two of them.
Which was nice. It gave me extra time to tackle that laundry pile I’d mentioned.
My mom was around just a bit more than Giulia, who had to portion out her time between six sets of grandchildren. A task she loved, the woman who had wanted nothing more than dozens of grandbabies to love on and fuss over.
“I love them more,” she declared, leaning her face to take a healthy sniff of baby smell. “Which is why I made them some cupcakes,” she said, even as the sweet scent started to waft out the screen door. “I made some for the restaurant too.”
We still owned it.
And we both still worked there, yet not nearly at the same capacity we used to.
Thankfully, eventually, the buzz had spread, and business had been steady enough for my mom to hire and train a new chef to learn the menu, a young girl named River who took to cooking the way I never quite could. She still went in to work on weekends, but had largely allowed River to take over.
Once I started having babies, I had also taken almost a full step back, hiring several people to work the front of the house, so I could stay home and raise babies.
And do laundry.
God, the laundry.
I could practically hear it calling to me. And, given how filthy some of it was, I wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t possible for some of it to start talking.
“And I made you a pecan maple danish,” she told me, rocking the baby to sleep. “Why don’t you go have some? You need the calories,” she reminded me as the gate slammed, and the children came rushing back into the yard, making a beeline for the swing set.
“I think I will,” I agreed, getting up, patting her arm as I went, then moving inside.
I was into my second healthy piece of said danish when Nino walked into the kitchen, giving me a soft smile.
“I did a couple loads of laundry while you were outside,” he told me with a kiss to my hair.
I didn’t think it was possible to love the man more.
Then he went and said things like that.
“Uh oh,” he said, looking worried. “What’d I do?” he asked, making me realize my eyes had gone a little glassy.
