Now as she pulled up at a red traffic light, she twisted around in her seat to look back at the twins. They were in rear-facing capsules but Pete had installed mirrors so she could see their faces. James was fast asleep. Elliot was awake, her eyes darting about. Mimi prodded at her own chest with her fingers. Come on then, heart, wake up and feel something. A car beeped its horn behind her and she gave them the finger before turning back around and pressing down on the accelerator. The light could only have been green for an instant. Impatient fucker.

Mimi used to like parking and walking in for the school pick-up. There were several mums she liked catching up with. But it had been Tara’s idea to meet her at kiss-and-ride in the afternoons. ‘So you don’t have to get the twins out,’ she’d said helpfully.

Mimi was about to turn down towards the queue when she made a last-minute decision to find a parking spot instead. Screw it, it wasn’t that hard to put the girls in the double stroller. She wanted to say hi to the other mums. Annoyingly, when she did finally find a spot and haul the stroller out of the boot, she discovered Elliot had now fallen asleep too. How had that happened in less than two minutes? Too bad. She was parked now. She scooped the girls out one at a time. Elliot stayed asleep; James woke and started whimpering. As she strapped them in, she noticed heavy dark purple clouds gathering over the school. Great, was it going to storm? She hadn’t heard anything on the weather report about rain. Hopefully it would hold off until after they’d all made it back to the car. Although it was Murphy’s Law that if an afternoon storm was going to hit, it would hit at school pick-up.

She pushed the heavy stroller up the hill towards the school gate. With any luck, she’d catch Tara before she ran down to the kiss-and-ride line. Although that would depend on how many parents stopped her to take a look at the girls on the way.

When she finally did reach the old meeting spot, thankfully managing to call out to Tara and stop her as she was sprinting by, she’d been pulled up no less than six times by well-meaning parents. Their admiring looks had been accompanied by the usual comments. Here’s double trouble. These two mustn’t be letting you have too much sleep. Adorable, aren’t you lucky? Are they identical? Boys or girls? Or did you hit the jackpot and score one of each. For fuck’s sake, it was as if having babies was a lottery where getting a pigeon pair was the main prize.