Firefly Lane (Firefly Lane 1)

"Im fine," Kate said, taking her seat. "I took Marah to playgroup this weekend. All the kids were sick. " She waited for her mother to respond. When the silence went on and on, Kate finally looked up. "What?"

"Mayonnaise," her mother said. "It made you sick when you were pregnant with Marah, too. "

It felt as if the chair beneath Kate just evaporated—poof! disappeared—and she was falling fast. Several annoyances clicked into place and became clues: tender breasts even though she wasnt having her period; trouble sleeping; exhaustion. She closed her eyes and shook her head, sighing. Shed wanted another baby—she and Johnny both did—but it had been so long, theyd given up. And now everything was going so well with the writing. She didnt want to go back to sleepless nights and crying babies and days that left her too tired to answer a question at the dinner table, let alone write a story.

"Youll just take a little longer to get published," her mother said. "Youll be able to do both. "

"We wanted another baby," she said, trying to smile. "And Ill still keep writing. Youll see. " She almost had herself convinced. "I can do it with two kids. "

On Thursday, two days later, she found out she was having twins.

Part Four

THE NEW MILLENNIUM

A Moment Like This

some people wait a lifetime

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

By 2000, Kate rarely paused in the whirlwind chaos of her everyday life to wonder where the years had gone. Contemplation and reflection, like relaxation, were thoughts from another era, ideas from another life. The road not taken, as they used to say. A woman with three children—a ten-year-old girl who was fast approaching puberty and twin boys under two—simply didnt have time to think about herself much, and the number of years that separated her kids ages created almost two families. She knew now why women had their children closer together. Starting over doubled a mothers exhaustion level.

Her days were consumed by details, and this surprisingly sunny morning in March was no exception. The chores stacked up, one on top of another, until she found herself running from sunrise to well past sunset. The crappy part was that she never seemed to accomplish anything substantial, yet she almost never had an hour to herself. The at-home mothers life: it was a race with no finish line. That was what they talked about in the carpool line as they waited for their kids to leave school. That, and divorce. Every month lately it seemed that one seemingly solid marriage had shown its crumbling clay foundation.

Except today wasnt just another ordinary bead in the strand of her life. Today, Tully was coming to Seattle for a promotional tour. It would be the first time theyd seen each other in months, and Kate couldnt wait. She needed some girlfriend time.

She hurried through her To Do list—dropped Marah off at school, spent too long at Safeway, bought all-new makeup at Rite Aid, made it to the library in time for reading hour, picked up Johnnys dry cleaning, got the boys down for their naps, and cleaned the house.

By two-thirty, as she pulled out of the carpool lane—again—she was exhausted.

"Aunt Tullys coming to spend the night tonight, right, Mommy?" Marah said from the backseat. She looked tiny, wedged in as she was between the boys dump-truck-sized car seats.

"Thats right. "

"Are you gonna wear makeup?"

Kate couldnt help smiling at that. She wasnt quite sure how it had happened, but somehow shed raised a tiny beauty queen. At ten, Marah already had more fashion sense and style sensibility than Kate ever had. She watched in amazement as her tall, slim ten-year-old daughter poured over the teen fashion magazines and memorized designer names. School shopping was a terror. If Marah didnt find exactly what she wanted, she went ballistic. There was rarely any doubt in Kates mind that her daughter was judging her appearance. More often than not, she knew she was found lacking. "I will definitely wear makeup. Ill even curl my hair, hows that?"

"Can I wear lip gloss? Just this once? All the girls—"

"No. Weve had this discussion, Marah. Youre too young. "

Marah crossed her arms. "Im not a baby. "

"Youre not a teenager, either. Believe me, there will be plenty of time for all that. " She pulled the car into the garage and parked.

Marah was out of the car and into the house before Kate had time to ask her to help carry stuff in. "Thanks for the help," she muttered, releasing her boys from the car seats. As toddlers, Lucas and William were wild separately; together they were a tornado.

For the next few hours, she did more afternoon chores: in addition to all the regular things, she arranged vases of flowers and placed them throughout the house, positioned and lit scented candles on dressers too high for the boys to reach, and thoroughly cleaned the guest room in case Tully decided she had time to say. Then, with dinner in the oven and the boys trailing along behind her, she went upstairs to get ready. As she passed Marahs room she could hear the patter of feet that meant her daughter was pulling one outfit after another from her closet.

Smiling, Kate went to her own room, parked the boys in the playpen, and, ignoring their screams, took a shower. When she finished drying her hair (trying not to notice how dark her roots were), she opened the bathroom door.

"How you guys doing now?"

Lucas and William sat side by side, their bare pudgy legs splayed out in front of them, babbling to one another in baby talk.

"Good," she said, patting their heads as she passed them.