I roll my eyes, but he knows me too well and sees right through it. “You want to start this one, or should I?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“You’re just saying that so I’m distracted.”
“Probably.”
“Manipulative jerk.”
“Love you too.”
I kiss him quickly, shake my head, and go into Papa Bear mode. I raise my voice so it carries down the hall. “That better not have been something breaking. I’d hate to think what would happen if two little kids weren’t capable of having nice things.”
Two squeals come from down the hall, followed by hushed whispers.
“They’re not even subtle, are they?”
“Well, they are related to you,” Otter says. “I don’t know that you have a subtle bone in your body.” He pauses, considering. “Well, except for when I’m inside of—”
“Unless you plan to do something about it right now, you better not even finish that. Seriously, Otter. What the hell.”
He waggles his eyebrows at me.
He’s such an asshole. I’m the luckiest man in the world.
He follows me down the hallway to a door covered in My Little Pony stickers and diagrams of the skeletons of a blue whale and a flying lemur.
“Yep,” I mutter before I push open the door. “Those are our children, all right.”
The room has changed in the last few years. Oh sure, it’s still that same pale blue as it was before, with the clouds painted on it. But gone are the stenciled tigers and elephants that had once pranced in a field of green grass and pretty flowers. The sun is still painted in the corner, and the stars still glow on the ceiling at night when the lights are low.
Now the room might as well be split right down the middle. On the left, the bed is made im
maculately, books shelved, toys put away in the blue chest that sits on the floor. The walls are covered in the same My Little Pony stickers that were on the door, and it’s the only thing that looks slightly out of place, but Noah Thompson loves them more than life itself, and he had begged for us to allow him to put them there, insisting that they would help him sleep because they scared away the monster that lived under his bed. And when your son is staring at you with wide, earnest eyes and talking to you about his precious My Little Pony stickers, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll give in without even the smallest of arguments. In fact, when he told me that, I went a little overboard and bought him a stuffed pillow of his favorite pony, Princess Celestia, because there was no way a damn monster would ever put its claws on my child.
“You know he’s pulling your chain, right?” Otter asked me as Noah squealed, hugging the pillow close to his chest.
“There are monsters,” I told Otter as if he was stupid.
“Oh boy,” Otter said.
The other half of the room looks like a hurricane struck it, the bed disheveled, toys strewn across the floor. (“They’re not toys, Papa! I am not a child.”) The walls are covered in carefully clipped photos from National Geographic and, randomly, a photograph of Bach printed online because Lily Thompson is so damn weird like that.
And currently, she is standing above her brother, who is lying on the floor, a pink surgical mask wrapped around her face, a flat red case open on her bed filled with plastic medical equipment meant for kids, something she had gotten last Christmas. She had screamed long and loud when she’d opened it, wrapping paper flying furiously around her, thanking Santa for finally giving her what she wanted, Otter and I blinking blearily as it was only five in the morning.
Lily is wearing the dress Anna and Izzie took her shopping for, having told the both of us that she wanted to go with the girls if she had to wear a dress. “I don’t like dresses,” she told me in that tone she did so well. “But if I have to wear one, I wanna go with Anna and Izzie.”
Which led to Noah loudly proclaiming that he too wanted to go with Anna and Izzie, but not because he wanted to wear a dress. He just always wanted to go wherever his sister was. Lily had rolled her eyes but had gripped his hand tightly, and Otter and I both knew what was going to happen then, whether we liked it or not. Wherever Lily went, Noah was sure to follow.
He was our sensitive, kind, sweet little boy.
She was our no-nonsense, wickedly smart little girl.
It was a little scary at first to see her in a more dominant position. I worried for a long time that she would railroad right over Noah and that he would just let it happen, but she was oh so careful with him, treating him like he was something precious. No one messed with Noah Thompson, not while Lily was present. He was older, but she was his protector. He likes pretty things, and while Otter and I don’t give two shits about that, others aren’t always going to be so kind.
Just after their fourth birthday last fall, Ty and Dom took them to the park. Ty told me later that Noah had taken one of his ponies, and some little dick with a fucking attitude had tried to give him shit for it, telling him that boys didn’t play with ponies. Noah’s lip had been wobbling just a little, and Ty had been up on his feet, ready to kick six-year-old ass, but then Lily had put herself between Noah and his bully, growling at the little asshole that Noah could play with whatever he wanted. Her eyes were narrowed and her hands were in little fists at her sides, and the older kid must have seen the same fierceness we’d witnessed over and over again. No one messed with her brother. Ever.
The bully had turned tail and run.