My mother yelled, “I just cleaned this floor!”

I laughed so hard I had to lean against the counter.

People took pictures.

Dozens of them.

Both boys were in every frame.

Cake on their faces.

Frosting in their hair.

My mother holding one.

Me holding the other.

No one cropped one out.

No one chose a favorite.

My phone buzzed on the kitchen island.

A notification from the parenting app.

Ethan.

Happy birthday to the boys. Tell them Dad loves them. I’ll see them tomorrow.

I read it once.

Then I turned the phone facedown.

Not because I wanted to punish him.

His scheduled time was tomorrow.

Tomorrow, he could show up and be their father within the boundaries we had built.

Today belonged to us.

Owen grabbed my sleeve with a frosting-covered hand.

Noah banged his spoon against the tray.

Mom complained that somebody was going to have to repaint the wall.

I looked at my sons.

A year earlier, I had been lying in a hospital bed while my husband walked past one crying baby to reach the other.

For months afterward, I kept asking myself how I had missed what was happening.

Eventually I stopped asking.

Ethan’s deception belonged to him.

What belonged to me was what I did after I saw it.

I picked up Noah.

Then Owen demanded to be held too, so I somehow got both of them balanced against me while they smeared frosting down my shirt.

My mother reached for her phone.

“Hold still.”

“I am holding thirty pounds of moving baby.”

“Smile.”

I did.

She took the picture.

Both boys were laughing.

So was I.