“The right college,” he teased, but they both knew it wasn’t really a joke. The twins were freshmen in high school and Jude had already begun to research colleges.

She looked up at him, wanting him to understand. He thought she was too invested in their children, and she understood his concern, but she was a mother, and she didn’t know how to be casual about it. She couldn’t stand the thought that her children would grow up as she had, feeling unloved.

“You’re nothing like her, Jude,” he said quietly, and she loved him for saying it. She rested against him; together they watched the day brighten, and Miles finally said, “Well, I better get up. I have a surgery at ten.”

She kissed him deeply, then followed him back into the house. After a quick shower, she dried her shoulder-length blond hair, put on a thin layer of makeup, and dressed in jeans and a boatnecked cashmere sweater and faded jeans. Opening her dresser drawer, she withdrew two small wrapped packages; one for each of her children. Taking them with her, she walked out of her bedroom, down the wide slate hallway. With morning sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, this house, constructed mostly of glass and stone and exotic woods, seemed to glow from within. On this main floor, every viewpoint boasted some decorating treasure. Jude had spent four years huddled with architects and designers to make this home spectacular, and her every dream for it had been realized.

Upstairs, it was a different story. Here, at the top of a floating stone and copper stairway, it was kidland. A giant media room, complete with big-screen TV and a pool table, dominated the east side of the house. Additionally there were two large bedrooms, each with their own en suite bathrooms.

At Mia’s bedroom door, she knocked perfunctorily and went inside.

As expected, she found her fourteen-year-old daughter sprawled on top of the blankets in her four-postered bed, asleep. There were clothes everywhere, like shrapnel from some mythic explosion, heaped and piled and kicked aside. Mia was actively engaged in a search for identity and each new attempt required a radical clothing change.

Jude sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked the soft blond hair that fell across Mia’s cheek. For a moment, time fell away; suddenly she was a young mother again, looking down at a cherubic girl with corn-silk hair and a gummy grin who’d followed her twin brother around like his shadow. They’d been like puppies, scrambling over each other in their exuberant play, chattering nonstop in their secret language, laughing, tumbling off sofa and steps and laps. From the very start, Zach had been the leader of this pair. He’d spoken first and most often. Mia hadn’t uttered a real word until after her fourth birthday. She hadn’t needed to; her brother was there for her. Then and now.