Page 108 of Christmas With A Stranger

“He learned that from your children,” I say.

“My children?”

“Your children.”

Graham bangs the spoon again.

Carson looks at him. “Exhibit A.”

I lift Hildie off the chair before she can launch herself toward the counter. At sixteen months, both of them have decided gravity is a suggestion and every surface in this house was built specifically for climbing.

Which is one of the reasons we moved here.

She settles on my hip and reaches for the leather cord at my neck and closes her fist around the shark tooth. I've retied the knot twice this year and replaced the cord once, but the tooth is the same one he bought off a gas station rack two Christmases ago. I haven't taken it off since last Christmas, except to repair it.

The man who bought it is barefoot at the stove in gray sweatpants, making breakfast for four people while a hundred-and-ten-pound dog negotiates over stolen pastry.

The sweatpants ride low on his hips, and his T-shirt lifts an inch in the back every time he reaches for the salt. After a year of mornings exactly like this one, the sight of him still makes me forget what I walked into the kitchen to do.

The farmhouse has five bedrooms, two acres fenced around the house, and enough floor space that the twins can run until they fall down. My bungalow in Holly Ridge had charm. It did not have room for two toddlers, a rancher, a dog, three high chairs because Carson bought the wrong one first and refused to throw it away, and the amount of plastic farm equipment currently occupying our den.

So in June we rented the bungalow to a teacher from the elementary school and the twins and I moved in with him on the ranch. I told Carson I was keeping the house. He told me he wouldn't expect anything less. That was the end of the conversation.

“Mom!” Graham yells.

It still gets me every time.

“I’m right here.”

He points at the stove.

“Egg.”

“You have to wait.”

“Egg.”

“He gets that from you,” Carson says.

“I do not demand eggs.”

“You demand plenty.”

I look at him and his mouth moves.

“Careful.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Boone eats the cinnamon roll. Carson sighs and throws the spatula onto the spoon rest.

“I told you he needed training.”

“You brought home a dog named Boone and then let two babies feed him from their trays for nine months.”

“I didn’t name him Boone.”

“No. Your daughter did.”