I scooped up Oreo just in the nick of time. “They have a home,” I said as I unhooked Sunshine’s claws from my pant leg. “But, wow, they’re growing up so fast, it’s getting harder and harder to keep them in this room. As soon as Joe and his guys are gone, we’re going to have to give them some more space. Maybe set up some baby gates or something to keep them safe. You don’t have any extras, do you?”

“Take my baby gates, please,” Carol said. “Maeve was scaling them before she could even walk, so they’re certainly not going to contain her at the ripe old age of three. Dennis actually caught her knocking on the neighbor’s door yesterday when he was coming home from work. She told him she ran away because our house was boring.”

Carol’s daughter Maeve and Christine’s daughter Sydney had been born months apart. They’d both just missed the preschool cutoff this year, but their Bayberry applications had been on file practically since birth. This wasn’t even that unusual. Quite a few parents made cellphone calls from the delivery room to put down a deposit to reserve their infant’s eventual Bayberry space.

I knew my sisters would each write letters requesting me as their child’s teacher next year. I was fine with that, since it never hurt for a teacher to appear to be in demand. But if Kate Stone caught on to the fact that we were related, which she probably would, their requests would never fly.

When my wasband’s new wife had requested me as a teacher for their twins, I’d nixed that placement. But I was torn about having my nieces in my classroom next year. On the one hand, Maeve was a handful, and Sydney was a quick study and picked up everything Maeve did, so they were essentially double trouble. On the other hand, I loved my nieces, and as much as my sisters could drive me crazy, I’d been dealing with them my whole life, so they were definitely the devils I knew. A new set of parents might drive me even crazier, plus I’d have to be nice to them because we weren’t related.

“So,” Carol was saying when I tuned back in. “Are Dad and Johnny keeping their mitts off each other?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t noticed any more punches flying.”

Carol picked up a couple of kittens and sat down on the couch. “I don’t get the Polly attraction. I mean, what’s up with that?”

I picked up the other two kittens. “She’s smart and sweet and funny and adorable. Dad’s attracted to pretty much all women, and Johnny’s lonely and vulnerable. What’s not to get?”