Excerpt

As the boys got bigger, they shared bunk beds, toy chests, bookshelves and a fascinating symmetry in a cramped bedroom upstairs. Sometimes, they slept tightly wrapped around one another. But usually, I could tell which bunk was whose the previous night by the state of the comforter cover. Zach was as loud as he was small. He kicked the covers this way and that. He read his dreams aloud for all to hear. He stacked his books high and left toys out in a treacherous path. Zeppo, on the other hand, lived for order and neatness.  Soldiers were only good if they stayed in formation. Blocks needed to be stacked. Books wanted to be in the jackets. These boys were my yin and yang and in many ways, a manifestation of who I had once been and what I had become.

A second bedroom located under the eaves had become an office for me once Andy and I turned the downstairs den into the master bedroom. There was a desk with one of Andy’s hand-me-down computers, a small daybed where guests slept and a wicker rocker in which I had sung both boys to sleep. Barf stains were still visible on the coordinating fabrics. But it was a sweet room and I liked to call it “Control Central” because the most important things happened here, like paying the household bills.