Then Hazel dumped a bucket of floating animal figurines into the tub. They bobbed awkwardly, some on their sides, some right side up, some with their feet peeking above the water. Griffin and Trevor splashed some more at the excitement. Hazel picked out the lion from the bunch and held it up.
“What does a lion say, boys?”
They looked at her inquisitively. Then Griffin opened his mouth to make a scratching, grumbling noise.
“Yeah! Ro-ooaa-ar,” Hazel said playfully as she walked the lion shape along the ledge of the tub. “Ro-ooa-rr.”
Griffin reached out for the figurine and Hazel placed it in his hand. Trevor picked out the hippopotamus shape out from the bunch and mimicked Griffin’s scratching, grumbling sound with his own screeching twist.
“Sure, that works,” Hazel said and watched them enter their shared trance of play. It was so intimate the way their worlds became entangled in an imaginary space that was as real to them alone as it was invisible to everyone else. They played and chattered and traded snacks and toys together from the moment they opened their eyes in the morning until the moment they closed them together at night. The bath was always transformed into a magical realm that Hazel could merely observe. Her participation was nothing but superficial. She wondered what it would be like to feel siblinghood as deeply as this. For each item in this bath to become a shared and sacred prop in some sort of make-believe narrative. She wondered what it would be like to cross a threshold with another person that no one else could see into. It used to feel like that with her mother, but things were different now. Now her mother had Cam. The twins had each other. And Hazel was left with hollowness. A world she wanted to escape from but no world to escape into.
Still, Hazel couldn’t help but feel a warmth inside her as she watched the twins enjoy each other so wholly. So gently. So effortlessly.
They were so quick to enjoy their life together. So open to joy. It was refreshing to see the world through their eyes at times.
Hazel bent over the edge of the tub and brought Trevor’s hand to her face. She pressed his palm to her lips for a long kiss and held it there. His fingers curled sweetly around her face. They were pruned and wrinkled from his time in the bath.
Hazel pulled each small body from the bath and wrapped it in a towel before scooping each up once again into her arms. They smelled so sweet and pure and innocent. Then Hazel brought the twins to her mother, who was still in the same position on the couch. She nestled each one on either side of her body. Her mother pulled the boys in close and gently kissed each one on the forehead and inhaled.
“It’s so sad to think that one day they’ll lose this smell,” Jane said.
Hazel turned around without responding and walked back toward her room.
She had certainly lost that freshly-bathed-baby smell a long, long time ago.
2
JANE
Jane rocked her little boys, one in each arm, and inhaled. They smelled so sweet after their bath. One by one, as she rocked them, their eyelids fell heavy. She placed them in their single crib. She remembered that Cam was originally surprised when she returned home from the store with just one crib.
“Saving the other crib for your next trip?” he asked genuinely.
She smiled at the thought as she watched the boys lying peacefully. She had read that one twin could disturb the other’s sleep if they were in the same space, but she’d willfully neglected it. And, as usual for Jane, her intuition was right. The boys had always been able to soothe each other, at times even more than she could. When she woke up in the middle of the night to feed them as infants, they would have already hooked their tiny little fingers into each other’s. Even as she watched them falling into their slumber before her, they were naturally wiggling their little bodies over toward each other until they felt the comfort of their brother alongside them.
Jane traced Trevor’s tender, wrinkled feet gently with her finger. He flinched and Jane pulled her finger away quickly, as if it had never risked waking him. But he swiftly went back to sleep. When she was sure he was still, Jane brought her same finger along the wisps of Griffin’s hair where they met the soft nape of his neck. Griffin, too, flinched and then returned to slumber without any more stirring. It was a mother’s right to enjoy the smooth, buttery yet vulnerable skin of her children whenever she so pleased.
Griffin and Trevor were everything anyone would want babies to be—soft and cherubic, petal-soft hair smelling of something sweet and powdery. They absorbed love without the slightest hesitation. They smiled when you tickled their belly. They laughed when you stuck your tongue out during a game of peekaboo. They stared into your eyes curiously and unwaveringly. They reached their arms out longingly for you. They had even slept soundly from the beginning. And with Hazel old enough to help, Jane could put aside many of the empirical realities that typically accompanied the birth of a child, or two. Hazel was so supportive and helpful with the care and maintenance of the babies—bath time, night feedings, sodden diapers, spilled milk, unexpected tears and soiled clothes. Jane was left with the spiritual bliss of her still-new-feeling babies and her still-new-feeling marriage.
As the baby brothers lay next to each other, silent, Jane crept out of their room and closed the door quietly behind her. She pressed her ear against the other side of the wall to listen for any signs of stirring but heard nothing. Just the peaceful and heartwarming scenario of two freshly bathed little boys asleep.
Jane felt a warm smile spread across her lips and a light flutter in her heart. She was so lucky. It was almost as if all the pain in her past life didn’t exist anymore.
Before joining Cam in the bedroom, she made her way into the kitchen and filled two big bowls with two heaping scoops of ice cream. She dashed back down the hallway, past the twins’ room, past Hazel’s room, into her own. They were always retiring to their bedroom as early as possible to get their alone time. Cam was already under the covers with his glasses on, reading a magazine. He lifted his head and smiled at Jane. She made her way toward the bed, with her hands and bowls of ice cream behind her back. She kissed him on the forehead, leaving her lips there for an extra moment, and then whipped the bowls out from behind her back.
“This one’s for you,” Jane declared and then joined her husband under the covers. “It has more cookie dough pieces.”
Cam deliberately spooned a chunk of his ice cream from the bowl. Jane could see on the spoon that there was a large piece of cookie dough embedded in the vanilla ice cream. She looked down at the spoon and raised one eyebrow. And then Cam brought the spoon to her lips.
“Open wide.”
Jane ate the cookie dough–filled spoonful in one quick bite.
3
HAZEL
After bringing her brothers to her mother, Hazel returned to her bedroom and cracked the door just slightly ajar. She couldn’t help but remain acutely aware of the sounds of her home, even though they pained her. Aware of the ways in which everyone puttered around the house. The way they moved from one space to the next. It was comforting to know where everyone was, even if out of sight. She had come to familiarize herself with the delicate sweep of her mother’s steps, the heavy shuffle of Cam’s, or the fumbling patter of Griffin or Trevor.