Page 65 of Letting it Ride

“Nah, I’m good,” I lie. “I’ll just, uh…” I look around for something to appease Thing One’s anger.

Addie giggles. “Here, let me take James.”

She sets Thing Two—Leo, apparently—on the floor and plucks James out of my arms. The traitorous child immediately calms, his big brown eyes fixed on Addie’s face.

Back off, kid. She’s mine.

“Aren’t you just too cute?” she coos. “You want to get down with your brother?”

“Are you allowed to just put them on the floor like that?”

She gives me a strange look. “Um, of course. How else would they learn to walk? Or crawl?”

I don’t know. I figured it was something that just… happened. Like how baby birds fly when they get kicked out of the nest or something.

Movement in my peripheral vision catches myattention. Leo has rolled onto all fours and has crawled over his brother, and is now making his way across the room—way faster than I figured a baby could go. Holy shit. “Do we…”

Addie follows my gaze. “Just keep an eye on him and kind of follow him around. If he goes for something he shouldn’t have, redirect him.”

She makes it sound so easy. I follow Leo—he seems like the easier option for some reason—and stay a few steps behind him while he explores. Okay, this isn’t too bad. I just stay on top of him. Kids aren’t so hard. I give Addie a triumphant smile. See? I could be a good dad.

The thought hits with a jolt. I’ve managed to put Ellie almost completely out of my mind until right now. For a second, I wish she could see me now, that I could prove to her that the past has nothing to do with who I am now.

“Don’t let him eat that,” Addie says, looking behind me.

I turn to find Leo with an electrical cord in his fat fist. He’s easily ten feet away from where he was when I turned around for a second to look at Addie. Jesus.

“Put that down,” I tell him.

Leo stares at me, nonplussed. He does not put the electrical cord down.

“Seriously, kid. Unhand the death wire.”

He raises it toward his mouth.

“Hey! I said—”

Addie saunters past me. “No-no,” she says to Leo, prying the cord out of his hand. She picks him up and sets him down several feet away and facing a different direction.

Leo crawls off that direction, presumably in search of something else lethal.

“You take James. He’s calmer.” Addie points to Thing One.

The only way I can remember who is who is their outfits, even though their features are so different from each other. Leo is in green, and James—aka Thing One—is in blue.

“Do you think their parents ever mixed them up when they were younger?” I ask. “Or did they always look different?”

James is sitting in the center of the room, a set of plastic blocks in front of him. There’s no sign of the banshee that greeted me at the door. How do babies switch moods so fast?

Addie takes a dust bunny away from Leo, then turns him the opposite direction and lets him go. “Oh, yeah. Leo came out with black hair. Apparently that’s how Chris was when she was born, too. His hair fellout when he was like two months old and grew in blond. But at first they had to paint a toenail to remember who was who.”

“Not a bad idea. At least they’re dressed differently.”

The blocks sit abandoned in the center of the living room. I catch sight of a fat leg disappearing around the edge of the couch and follow it. No wonder Josie and Chris looked frazzled. You never get to sit down. How come the kids don’t get tired? It’s been less than twenty minutes and I’m ready for a break.

We spend the next hour following babies around the living room and removing items of varying lethality from their chubby little hands. I know everyone talks about the effort involved in keeping their offspring alive, but I never knew it was because ten-month-olds are on a constant suicide mission.

My plan for today had been to spend some quality time with Addie. Just her and me, relaxing. I figured you feed them, put them down, and then do it all again in three hours. So far, it seems like I might have had the wrong idea.

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