“You, Cash, and me,” my brother adds.
“And the babies.”
“Goes without saying.”
We both study her profile from opposite sides, waiting for her to speak.
The house in front of us is colonial in style, clad in ivory-painted wood. A white fence surrounds the garden on all sides, and lines the steps leading up to the porch. There’s a little white gate at the front, a sycamore tree in a corner of the front yard, and tiny hearts carved out of the shutters. Our family home is just about visible from the attic on a clear day.
“I don’t understand.” She sucks on her top lip. “When you say our home, you mean…?”
“My apartment isn’t big enough for twins,” I say.
“Cash, you literally have three guest rooms.” Remy rubs her eyes like it might make the conversation clearer.
“And my apartment…” Bash’s voice trails off.
“So, we bought this house.” I can’t read her expression when she turns back to look at the property. “It has five bedrooms.”
“And three bathrooms,” Bash adds, tapping into his inner realtor. “We could build a playhouse in the back yard. For the twins.”
“They could have a room each.” I hesitate, uncertain which way to sell it best. “Or they could share. There’s even a spare room for Ariel.”
“You bought this for us?” she whispers.
“It isn’t the biggest house on Staten Island.” I don’t know why I’m still talking, trying to fill the silence so that Remy doesn’t feel obliged to. “But it’s a decent area.”
“With good schools.”
For the longest time, Remy’s eyes flit between the two of us. Then her face literally glows with her smile.
“Guys, you had me at the spare room for Ariel.”
EPILOGUE
REMY
“He’s getting too needy,you know.” Ariel stops painting, sits back, and studies her artwork.
We’re decorating the twins’ nursery before they arrive in a month’s time. Ariel has painted a sunrise mural on one wall and is currently adding a tiger to the backdrop of jungle foliage on another. I always knew she was creative. But I didn’t realize that she was a closet mural genius until she painted a Benson Boone concert in our spare room, now conveniently known as Ariel’s room, with the singer performing a backflip over a piano on one wall.
She’s talking about Tristan.
“Needy how?”
She wrinkles her nose. “He wants to see me like every night. Now that I have our dorm room all to myself, he expects me to sneak him into the residence halls and then sulks when I tell him I want to read a book. In peace. Without him pawing me for affection.”
She chooses the tiniest paintbrush on earth from a wrap on the floor and dips it into a miniature pot of gold paint.
“He likes you.” I should be painting. Ariel trusted me with the baseboards. Simple white. Impossible to go wrong, she said; and my overalls are already polka-dotted and crusty. “He wants to spend time with you.”
“I can’t do it, Remy. I like my own space. Which is why I told him that I’m moving in here until after the twins are born.”
“You didn’t!” I gasp dramatically.
I seem to over-dramatize everything these days. I crush the corner of a page in a book I’m reading, and cry. I burn a slice of toast, and cry. It rains, and I cry. I’m a walking advertisement for overacting.
“I most certainly did, and I feel no shame.”
