Page 96 of The Summer of ’98

She looked at me over her shoulder as I tried to keep up with her, being careful not to crash the stroller again. “So little!”

“They were five weeks early.”

She stopped beside a rack of clothes that were hidden in the back corner of the Newborn section. She wasn’t kidding when she said the selection was small—there wasn’t much to it at all—but I did manage to get them a button-up thermal each and some microsized socks. The weather was cold outside, so I threw the rain cover over the stroller and walked back to the car as quickly as I could. Leroy was at classes this morning, I’d dropped him off so that I could use the car and he’d get a ride home with a friend later. Loading the twins into the car was a marathon of its own. Untangling them from their swaddles, strapping them into the rear-facing seats, tucking the blankets over them, collapsing the stroller and hoisting it into the trunk. I was exhausted when I finally dropped into the driver’s seat.

When we got home, the process began all over again, in reverse. The parking lot was behind the apartment building, so I couldn’t take them in one at a time. I had to put them in the stroller, blankets, rain cover, inside, unload.

“Momma is so tired,” I huffed, setting them down on the living-room floor at a safe distance from the heater. Drayton was waking up, gurgling, kicking his strong little legs. It would be time for a feed any minute, but I quickly raced over to the stereo and switched on the CD player so that there was some background noise.

Before I could grab the tri pillow that I used to rest them on during feeding, there was a solid knock on the door, which was strange because the only people who visited were back in Colorado until next weekend. I wasn’t sure who to expect but it certainly wasn’t the woman standing on the other side of the door when I opened it.

“Mom?”

“Hi,” she said, clutching her purse tightly against her side.

Shock rendered me frozen. I stared at her, noticing how different she looked. Her hair was short now, chopped into a pixie cut. She was thinner and overall looked more vibrant. Younger. Which shouldn’t have disappointed me, but whenever I thought about Momma without me, after all that had happened, I imagined her miserable, drowning in guilt for how things had been left between us.

“What are you doing here?”

She seemed nervous, pointing over her shoulder. “I saw you at Target and I . . . well . . . I was hoping that we could talk?”

“Did you follow me here?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I wanted to approach you in the store but I was—well, I was nervous. I can go if this isn’t a good time.”

The twins started fussing from the living room, little cries and gurgles, and Mom’s curious stare went over my shoulder. As stubborn as I wanted to be about the situation, as much as I wanted to stand my ground and let her know that I was still upset, the need to hear what she had to say outweighed all else. The truth was, I’d missed her and I hoped that she was here with something positive to say.

“Come in,” I stood aside. “I have to feed the twins before I can offer you a coffee. Go straight through to the living room.”

All of her movements were slow and cautious. She looked around, head twisting and turning as she moved into the living room, and then her focus fell to the twins on the floor and she wore an expression that I’d never seen before. Awe, admiration, regret. It was hard to tell which one she was feeling the most.

“Take a seat if you want,” I said, gesturing at the sofa.

She was still clutching her purse as she lowered herself into the sofa, watching as I tucked the tri pillow around my waist. One at a time, I picked the twins up off the floor, put them on the sofa a few feet apart and then I sat down between them. Drayton went on first, his torso and legs tucked around my waist—he was the most impatient and made a lot of noise if he didn’t get fed as quickly as possible. Abby went on next, in the same position on the other side. They latched on and I listened to their guzzling and quick breathing through their noses.

“You’re doing well,” Mom said after a few minutes of deafening silence. She watched the twins, their tiny fists balled up on my chest. “It’s just you here?”

I wasn’t sure if she was questioning my relationship status but I felt defensive nonetheless. “Leroy is in class right now. He has—”

As if he’d been summoned, the front door swung open. “Els? I’m home. Have the twins been fed yet? Sorry, I tried to get back on time to help but our professor had some riddle that he wanted us to think about overnight. You might be able to—”

His sentence dropped off as he walked into the living room, his gaze moving between Mom and me.

“Hey,” I smiled, the awkward tension in the room was magnified. “This is my mom, Sandra. Mom, this is my fiancé, Leroy.”

“Fiancé?” Mom quietly said to herself while Leroy stared at me as if to say, what the hell? I shrugged, equally as confused. “It’s nice to meet you, Leroy.”

“You too,” he rested his hands on his hips. “Have they had enough to eat?”

The twins had fallen into a milk coma, their lips detached from the nipple while little drizzles of white ran down their cheeks. “Yeah. They need to be changed, though.”

“I’ve got it,” he said and darted forward so that I could put a twin on either of his big strong forearms. He could carry them both at the same time with no issue at all. After he gave me a quick kiss, he disappeared to our bedroom and shut the door.

Silence ensued again and it was making me somewhat restless. Every time I opened my mouth to initiate conversation, the words got caught in my throat, or a blank wave washed over my mind and thinking of any words at all seemed impossible. Surely, she hadn’t shown up here just to sit there and say nothing at all.

“He seems like a very young nice man,” Mom said so suddenly that it startled me. “Very involved.”

“He is,” I said, playing with the frill on the edge of the tri pillow. “He’s at college but he’s still really hands-on around here. He comes home during his breaks and he helps at night.”

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