Jordan sits without making a sound, his little face mesmerized. He doesn’t even laugh or raise his hand to volunteer. He just watches intently, like a scientist absorbing new data. When we get home, he rushes to the computer without asking permission, and I hear Incredible Isaac’s voice, teaching Jordan new magic tricks through the screen.

When I’m gone, back to my own apartment and away from them, my chest aches like something’s missing, and it’s such a foreign feeling that I wonder if I should curb this sentimentality, this overflow of love I’m feeling for them. Because that’s what it is, pure, uncomplicated love. There’s no need for people-pleasing or excessive complimenting, no subtle urge to twist them to fit my needs.

In Prospect Park, I turn my head to help Jordan open a bag of chips, and Lola is gone. And the feeling I have in that moment, my eyes straining to find her braided hair colorfully adorned with pastel barrettes, is nothing like I’ve ever experienced, a fear so animal, so entrenched in me that I forget to breathe. When she bounces back to me not two minutes later, babbling about the big black dog she was petting, I nearly cry, my entire body collapsing into her small body as I hug her, shower her with kisses. And I wonder how Anneliese could have let Jordan sit in the playground, bloody and in pain, for one second without needing to comfort him, to bring him close to her heart and tell him it’ll all be better.

One day during a summer storm, we’re stuck inside. I’ve set up Twister in the living room, and I’m spinning the dial for them. They have two friends over, twins named Pandora and Pascal, whose high energy is unmatched. I know they’re going to tire of Twister soon and I’m going to have to think of some other game to play. Already, the twins have given me a headache, their voices unmodulated, their little legs flying around the apartment faster than I can keep up.

I marvel again at how well-behaved Jordan and Lola are as Pandora kicks Pascal, who begins to cry. But not before kicking his sister back, and then they’re both crying and Lola is crying and I can’t take it anymore and I break Anneliese’s rule and place them in front of the TV with fruit leather and go in search of another game.

I’ve seen them in the closet, stacked high on the top shelf: Monopoly, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, all the classics I remember along with a bunch I don’t, new games for a savvier generation of kids. I stand on tiptoe on the stool, thunder cracking outside. Luckily Finding Nemo is too engaging for any kid to come running to me, frightened by the noise.