“You go up and nap,” said Nat as we walked into the sterilized kitchen. “I’ll bring him up when he starts rooting.” I climbed the stairs gratefully, the incision in my belly burning. Craig followed me. It was so amazing to be able to walk upstairs with no kids following us. Craig lay close beside me, his light blue irises magnified behind his round glasses. The thing about Craig is, his parents were divorced when he was eight; secretly he lives in fear that one day he’ll fall out of love with me and leave, and I’ll turn into a bitter and unlovable woman like his mother. So I never know if his love is real or if it’s just distilled guilt. But I knew at that moment he just plain loved me.

“Well, you did it again,” he said.

“I’m a little scared.”

“He’s going to be fine. I’m glad Nat is here.”

“Me, too. How much are we paying her, anyway?”

He shrugged. “She’s a present from my mother.”

That night at dinner, as we were tucking into Nat’s famous lasagna and chopped salad, the baby sleeping peacefully in his bassinet, a fight erupted between Kyle and Tyler. Kyle was trying to steal a cherry tomato from Tyler’s plate. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s tomato,” said Craig. I stood up to wash some more. Nat shot up fast instead, chuckling. “My husband calls me Mrs. Covet,” she said, washing the tomatoes in a sieve. Craig and I looked up at her, surprised.

“I didn’t know you were married, Nat,” Craig said. Nat put her hand on her hip in mock outrage.

“What’d ya think, I was an old maid? He calls me Mrs. Covet ’cause whenever he orders something in a restaurant, I change my order so’s I can have what he’s having, ’cause it always sounds so much better than what I ordered. Mrs. Covet. That’s me.” From that night, Craig and I started calling Nat “Mrs. Covet” when we were alone.