Page 103 of Seek Him Like Shelter

This was the third migraine just this week.

And while our eldest son understood the need to leave his mother alone and try to be quiet, our middle was still obsessed with being with his mom every second of the day.

“Knock knock,” Islah’s voice called as she stepped into the condo.

“Eye! Eye!” our three-year-old called, running toward his aunt with his arms up high.

“Hey, you,” she said, scooping him up and settling him on her hip. “I was dropping by to see if my niblings want to come and get ice cream,” she said, making our older son’s eyes light up.

“The boys are happy to come,” I said, nodding. “But they’re a handful enough.”

“Nope. We’re taking all three, so get me a diaper bag ready.”

“We?” I asked, watching as she walked back toward the door, opening it and stepping back to let a man walk in.

“See? Extra set of hands. Now, the diaper bag,” she said, coming over to the family room to set her nephew down at her side, so she could reach for her niece. “So, what kind of ice cream are you getting?” she asked my oldest. “Because I think I want vanilla soft serve in a cone with rainbow sprinkles.”

Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and knowing Islah was more than capable of taking care of the kids, since she was our go-to babysitter, I went ahead and got the diaper bag all packed while Islah strapped the baby into her carseat carrier, then handed it to the man who she had to be getting serious with if she was bringing him around to introduce to her big brother.

With that, she hoisted the three-year-old on her hip, put the bag on her shoulder, and took my eldest’s hand.

“Say bye to daddy,” she said as she shuffled my kids out the door.

I turned back from the door to find Elizabeth leaning in the doorway. Her eyelids were still swollen from the migraine, but the ease in her body language said it had finally broken.

“I guess she finally figured out that real men can be even better than fictional ones,” she said, following me over to the couch and sitting next to me, resting her head on my shoulder.

“How’s your head?”

“Better. Hopefully, there’s no rebound, but better. That was a banger.”

“Want me to make you some coffee?”

“Nope,” she said, sliding her legs over my lap. “I want to stay here, just like this,” she said as my arm went around her, pulling her close. “I love the noise, but it really does make you appreciate the occasional quiet. Well, relative quiet,” she said as Richard and the newest rescue Serano had dropped at our door, Donald, got into a little tiff over the dangling yarn ball on the tree stand.

We were currently at four cats.

Four cats.

Three children.

And only two sets of hands.

It was crazy around here more often than it was calm.

But neither of us would have it any other way.

Elizabeth - 25 years

“Okay,” our daughter declared from her side of the dinner table after nervously twisting her pasta, a telltale sign that she was nervous about something. “I finally figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” Elian asked, head tipped to the side as he looked at her, our only girl, though not our youngest.

I remember being dubious once about how many “a few” children meant to Elian. It turned out it meant five. An absurd number of children to raise in the city. But thanks to Elian’s forethought to buy the other condo in hopes of a family one day, we had more than enough room for all of them.

And, hey, that last one turned out to be one of the best decisions we’d ever made. Because that little dude had worked some kind of magic spell on my hormones, making my migraines all but disappear.

I still struggled with one here or there, mostly due to the weather or working out too hard, but it was nothing like I’d been experiencing most of my adult life.

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