When You Least Expect It Read Free

be a long time before he was old enough to play with you. And by then, you probably wouldn’t want to play with him, because you’d be so much older,” I explained to Luke.
    Luke considered the wisdom of this argument. “But I wouldn’t be the youngest anymore. And I’d have someone to boss around.”
    “That’s true,” I said.
    “If you had a girl, it would almost be like I had a sister,” Rose said.
    “Yeah, and if it was a boy, it would be like I had a brother,” Luke continued.
    “You already have a brother,” Rose informed him, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
    “Yeah, thanks, Luke,” Miles said mildly, still juggling his Hacky Sack.
    “Besides,” Rose continued, “India and Jeremy are
my
godparents, not yours. So if they had a baby, it would be my sister or brother, but it wouldn’t be yours.”
    Rose liked to lord her superior claim to Jeremy and me over her two brothers whenever possible. It had the desired effect now. Luke swelled with outrage.
    “That’s not true! Take it back!” he demanded.
    “It is too true. Right, India?” Rose said.
    Both kids looked at me, as though I were the referee. I tried to remember what Mimi did at moments like this, and had a vague recollection of her saying that if there wasn’t actual bloodshed, she stayed out of sibling warfare.
    “Okay, everyone simmer down. I promise that if Jeremy and I ever do have a baby, you can all be official big brothers and sisters. Yes, Rose, that includes Luke,” I said. “Now, who wants to toast a marshmallow?”
    “Me, me, me,” Miles, Leo, and Rose chorused.
    “Me, me, me!” Jeremy chimed in.
    Otis had drifted away to sniff at a dried patch of seaweed. But at the word
marshmallow
, he scampered back over. I handed bamboo skewers around, and after warning the kids to be careful around the hot coals—and then nervously repeating the warning over and over, until even laid-back Miles was rolling his eyes—the toasting of the marshmallows commenced. Once everyone’s marshmallow was properly browned and gooey—or in Rose’s case, charred black, which she insisted was how she preferred them—Jeremy passed around graham crackers and chocolate bars.
    “The s’more,” he announced, holding one up for us to admire. “The world’s most perfect food.”
    “I don’t like s’mores,” Luke said, looking at his suspiciously.
    “Good! More for me,” Jeremy said, making a pretend grab for it. Luke backed away, screeching with laughter.
    “No! I changed my mind!” Luke said, giggling. “I do like s’mores!”
    “So why don’t you have kids, India? Don’t you want them?” Rose asked as she munched on her s’more.
    I should have known that Rose wouldn’t be so easily thrown off topic. When in pursuit of a goal, Rose displayed terrifying single-mindedness. Someday she would make an excellent CIA interrogator.
    “Who wants another marshmallow?” Jeremy asked quickly.
    “Because I think you’d be a good mom,” Rose continued.
    “Thanks, sweetie,” I said. I put an arm around Rose, and she snuggled in toward me. Her hair smelled of baby shampoo and smoke. Suddenly, without warning, tears burned at my eyes.
    “What about me?” Jeremy asked, threading another marshmallow onto his skewer.
    “What about you?” Rose asked. She grinned impishly. “You’d be an okay dad, I guess.”
    “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jeremy said.
    “Maybe India doesn’t want kids,” Miles suggested.
    “Why wouldn’t she want kids? She likes us,” Rose said.
    I laughed at her indignation. “Jeremy and I would love to have a baby. But sometimes adults who want to have children aren’t able to,” I explained, wiping away my tears before the kids noticed them.
    “Why not?” Luke asked.
    How do you explain premature ovarian failure to kids?
I wondered, before quickly realizing that you don’t. It was much better to stick to generalities. Still, I couldn’t talk down to them. All three of them hated that.
    “You