Marianne turned the pages of her cookbook and watched her children playing on the stairs. Lucas was using a flashlight to produce a circle of light on the wall. He dropped down a step and began making shadow shapes with his hands—a goose, then a seagull, then a horse, then a dog. Sarah, their eight-year-old, sat next to him and watched. After a while she tried to mimic what he was doing.

She did not like to admit it, but Marianne loved the girl a little less. A first child settles down and crushes you. Her love for Sarah was different—lighter but full of surprises. She always seemed to be stumbling onto her, like the time she heard voices, opened the bathroom door, and found Sarah standing on a stool, the shampoo and mouthwash and hairspray lined up in conversation along the counter, dental floss hanging like streamers from the medicine cabinet, the sink full of water. She’d made a pool, and the toothbrushes were swimming.

Marianne settled on a recipe for broccoli quiche. She could hear the neighbor’s cat outside, prowling the yard. At times its voice was so much like a wailing baby that she would start out of bed when she heard the sound. Then, unable to sleep, she would stumble to her children’s rooms, just to make sure that no one had called for her.

Sarah waved her hands in front of the flashlight. “I can’t do it.”

Lucas took hold of her wrist. He pulled her pointer and middle finger straight, and curved her thumb over the rest. “Stick that one out a little,” he said, and Marianne saw the rabbit’s teeth appear.

“Now, curl that one in tight, but not too much,” he said, and Marianne saw a tiny speck of light become the rabbit’s eye.

“Move your thumb,” he said, and the rabbit sniffed. It wiggled its ears. Marianne was glad, seeing them like this. It was a rare moment of togetherness. They usually played out of sight, in their rooms. She could hear them sometimes, thumping around, and had to stop herself from making sure things weren’t brewing into a fight.

Taking care of two children was harder than anything she’d ever done in her life. Once Sarah was born, Marianne was always tired. She felt that her responsibilities would never end, and that she was a failure as a mother, because there were times when she wanted to leave. To fight the urge, she would lay her two-year-old and newborn side by side on the bed and count their toes, back and forth. Twenty of them. Moving. Perfectly fresh and pink.