Before the work started, he had joined Jess, Leigh and the two rambunctious little boys for dinner one night. The object of the meal was to go over the plans for the way the yard was going to look, review the labor and materials price list and, even though they were friends, sign a contract. It wasn’t exactly a simple process, what with Mitch and Ty jumping up and down, spilling and shouting and, before the night was over, just before bed, getting into a fight.

It looked to John as though it was a regular brother thing. He had a brother two years older, and they had done the same kind of wrestling and tumbling that began with a tickle and a poke and escalated into warfare. He was just thinking about how it took him back, watching them, when someone started crying. Twins, he discovered, did everything double. Soon they were both crying.

“Mommy, Mitch poked my eye!”

“Mitch, did you poke Ty’s eye?”

“He was tickling me when I told him to stop it, and I didn’t poke it, I—”

“Did he ask you to stop, Ty?”

“But, Mom, he told me to tickle, and then I—”

“Mitch, did you ask Ty to tickle?”

John glanced over at Jess and rolled his eyes as if to say, “Listen to the genius,” which he had the mental control not to say. “I bet it’s bath time,” he said instead.

“Nooooo.”

“Not yet! Mommmm.”

“Yes, it is!” she said, triumphant.

Later, in the blessed quiet of the evening over a little coffee, John advised Leigh, “I don’t know much about kids, but I know one thing for sure. You’ll never figure out who started it, no matter how far back the questions go. It’s a lot easier if you don’t get involved. If they can’t fight it out, change the activity. Bench ’em.”

“Is that how your mother handled things?” Jess asked.

“Wellllll, sort of,” John said, somewhat uncomfortable. “Her way was a little more devious. I fought with one brother all the time. He was third, I was fourth. There were two years between us, but we were close to the same size. We both had a hand in starting them. She sent us outside or down to the basement to finish, depending on the weather.”

“Oh,” Leigh said, “then one of you got to win?”

“No winners,” he said, sipping his coffee. “If no one got hurt, it was a draw. If someone did get hurt, the one who didn’t got punished. Most of our fights ended with us competing to fake the best injury. My brother once stood on his own hand for so long I had already gone upstairs and to bed by the time he thought he had something good enough to show Mom.” He paused as if to think. “Now that I think about it, he’s still a little weird.”