He nodded.

“We haven’t had a night out in a long time.” I tried another smile, hoping for a response. “It will be like a date.”

“Don’t go, Mommy,” Daisy said. “Eat pancakes wiv us.”

I kissed her forehead. She smelled delicious. “I wish I could, sweetie. But Daddy will take good care of you. There are apple slices in the fridge,” I told John.

“I was going to feed them Tater Tots and ketchup,” John said. “That’s two food groups, right?”

A joke. I smiled, relieved. “At least. Thanks for watching the kids.”

“They’re my kids, too.”

“Sorry, honey. You’re a wonderful father.” He was. But being their mom was my job. This house was my surrogate work world. It was surprisingly hard to let it go. I offered him a weak smile. “I guess I’m just used to being in charge.”

John’s jaw tightened, the way DJ’s did when he was frustrated. “So tell me what you want me to do.”

I hesitated. John’s mom, Cheryl, had worked like a dog to provide for her boys: second jobs, third shifts, whatever she had to do. No one to pick up the slack, ever. Except John. He was only nine when Cheryl started to leave him alone to watch his brother. Too much responsibility, I’d always thought, for such a little boy.

But he was willing to help. If I was willing to accept it.

“Maybe,” I suggested, “if you see something that needs doing, you could just . . . do it? Like the other night, when you took the kids up for their bath without asking. That was really thoughtful.”

John stared at me a moment. He nodded once, confident now that he had a mission. A plan. “I could help with the Christmas shopping. Buy presents for the kids.”

I blinked. Christmas shopping? But why not? Did I really think it would stunt our children’s development if John bought them a toy?

“That would be great,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Great,” John repeated. He gave me a coffee-flavored peck. “We’ll see you later.”

“Bye, my babies! Have fun.”

It was good for the twins to get away from me sometimes, I told myself as I pulled out of the driveway. To have special bonding time with their daddy. It was good for John.

Maybe it would be good for me, too.

At the farmers’ market, the pumpkins and tomatoes had been replaced by apples, pecans, and first-frost collards, sweet from the cold. Jars of local honey and pickled okra gleamed on makeshift shelves. The tree farmers and Boy Scouts were doing brisk business in Fraser firs and wreaths, loading trees into pickups, securing car trunks with cord. The fresh pine scent swept over me, sharp as memory.

Two weeks until Christmas. I still needed to buy our tree. Or maybe two trees, one for our house and one for the farm.

Maybe Jo would help decorate when she got home, I thought hopefully, setting up my stall. Part of me wanted to have everything ready for my sisters’ homecoming, to make Christmas for them the way our mother always had, to hang the star on the barn and the wreath on the door. Put candles in the windows and strings of lights everywhere, looping over the crepe myrtle and azalea bushes, twining the banister and railings of the porch until the house glowed inside and out.