The Night Before
Thirty-one years.
That was how long I had lived on this earth, and somehow, after all of it, I had ended up here.
In this house.
With these children.
With this man.
Some nights, I still caught myself looking around like I had snuck into someone else’s life. Like any second, someone would turn the lights on and tell me I didn’t belong here. That women like me didn’t get soft endings. That women like me didn’t get babies with golden hair, or husbands who came home smelling like metal and sweat and still washed the dishes before bed.
But then Francisco would walk through the door, black dust smeared across his cheek, and Emma would kick her little legs so hard against my hip that I had to tighten my arm around her.
And there it was again.
Mine.
All of it.
The back door opened before the front one did.
“Mom! Mom!”
Bella came running through the kitchen first, barefoot and breathless, holding something above her head like she had discovered buried treasure. Alex followed behind her with dirt on his knees and that serious look he got when he was trying not to let his little sister take all the credit.
“Look what we found!” Bella said.
She shoved a giant leaf toward me. It was brown around the edges, torn slightly down the middle, and shaped almost exactly like a heart.
“For you,” Alex said.
I took it like it was made of glass.
“Oh wow,” I said. “That is a big heart.”
Bella grinned so hard her cheeks lifted. “Because we love you big.”
I pressed the leaf against my chest. “Well, I love you bigger.”
“No,” Alex said immediately. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s very possible.”
“No, because ours is the size of outside.”
I smiled and placed the leaf beside the television, on top of the growing pile of other leaf hearts they had been bringing me for weeks. Some were tiny. Some were crumbling. One had already dried into nothing but veins.
I kept every single one.
The front door opened then, and Emma squealed before I even turned around.
Francisco stepped inside, tired eyes, work boots, beard full of the day. His shirt clung to him in spots, and there was a dark streak across his forehead that I still didn’t understand after two years of loving a man who worked with metal for a living.
“Hey, honey,” I said, leaning up to kiss his cheek.
“Hey hunny,” he teased softly.
I rolled my eyes, but I smiled anyway.
Emma lunged for him with both arms.
“Hold on, mama,” he said, stepping back before her grabby hands could reach his dirty shirt. “Papa needs a shower first.”
I pinched her nose gently. “Stinky.”
Francisco gave me that look. The one that said he was too tired to laugh properly but happy enough to try. Then he kissed me, quick and warm, and disappeared down the hall.
Alex and Bella were already halfway to the sink when I called after them.
“Wash your hands. Dinner’s almost ready.”
“I get the hall bathroom!” Bella yelled.
“No, I called it!” Alex shouted back.
“You didn’t call anything!”
“I just did!”
Their footsteps thundered down the hallway, followed by the usual argument about who touched the faucet first.
I stood in the kitchen with Emma on my hip, stirring dinner with one hand, smiling like an idiot at nothing.
It wasn’t perfect.
The laundry was still in the basket from yesterday. There were crumbs under the table even though I had swept twice. Someone had left a sock on the bookshelf. My husband worked long hours. My kids fought over sinks, blankets, cereal bowls, and air.
But it was mine.
My loud, messy, impossible little life.
And I loved it so much it scared me.
After dinner, the house fell into its usual rhythm.
Bath water running.
Pajamas being hunted down.
Bella crying because the shirt she wanted was “too itchy in the sleeves.”
Alex asking if birds had knees.
Emma fussing because she was tired but offended by the idea of sleep.
By the time I got Alex tucked in, his hair was still damp and his cheeks were flushed from the bath.
“Mom,” he said as I pulled the blanket up to his chin.
“Yeah?”
“Can we go for a walk tomorrow?”
“Maybe. Depends on the weather.”
“I wanna look at the birds again.”
I sat on the edge of his bed. “The robins?”
“And the mourning doves. Is that the one that sounds sad?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “That’s the one.”
He nodded like this mattered deeply. “I like that one.”
“Me too.”
“And the cardinals.”
“Yes, the cardinals too.”
“And the blue jays.”
“Yes, baby. All the birds.”
“And maybe a hawk.”
“If we’re lucky.”
He smiled, satisfied at last, and closed his eyes before I even kissed his forehead.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Love you more.”
“Impossible,” I said.
His sleepy little smile tugged at one side of his mouth.
I turned off his light and stood there for one extra second, watching him breathe.
In Bella’s room, Francisco was sitting on the floor beside her bed, holding three stuffed animals in his lap and looking completely defeated.
“No,” Bella said, pointing at the unicorn. “The ooh-nah-corn goes by me because she missed me today.”
Francisco looked over his shoulder at me. “There are rules.”
“Oh, obviously,” I said.
“And this one,” Bella continued, handing him a floppy dog, “has to sleep on the floor because he got pillow last night.”
Francisco nodded seriously. “Fair.”
“And the bunny can be by my feet but not touching my feet.”
“Very specific.”
“Yeah, Dad. Everyone needs a turn.”
I covered my mouth so she wouldn’t see me laugh.
Francisco placed each stuffed animal exactly where she told him to, then leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“I love you, bossy girl.”
“I’m not bossy. I’m the mom of them.”
“Right. My mistake.”
She gave him a look that was entirely too grown for six years old, then rolled onto her side.
“Goodnight,” she sang.
“Goodnight,” we both said.
Francisco shut off her light, and we walked back to our room shoulder to shoulder, quiet in the way parents are quiet when the house finally belongs to them again.
Emma was waiting in her playard, rubbing her eyes with both fists.
Francisco picked her up and kissed the top of her golden hair.
“Come here, mama.”
She melted against him instantly.
There were moments when watching him with her hurt in the best way. Like my heart had too much inside it and nowhere to put the extra. I had spent so many years teaching myself not to expect much from men. Not kindness. Not help. Not softness.
Then Cisco came along and made the smallest things feel impossible.
A man who came home.
A man who stayed.
A man who knew which kid needed tucked in twice and which one needed the hallway light left on.
A man who loved children he didn’t have to love.
A man who loved me like it was easy.
Later, after Emma nursed herself heavy and warm, the three of us curled into bed. Francisco was asleep within minutes, one arm thrown over his head, breathing slow and steady. Emma’s tiny toes pressed against my stomach. Her fingers opened and closed against my shirt.
I stared into the dark and listened to my house.
The hum of the baby monitor.
The soft rattle of the air vent.
The distant creak of old walls settling.
My husband snoring beside me.
My children sleeping down the hall.
Everything I had ever wanted was breathing under the same roof.
I should have slept.
Instead, I stayed awake a little longer, letting myself memorize it.
The weight of my baby.
The warmth of my husband.
The leaf hearts by the television.
Alex’s voice asking for mourning doves.
Bella’s serious little face explaining fairness to stuffed animals.
I didn’t know a person could love a life so much and still survive inside their own body.
But I did.
I loved it.
God, I loved it.
Nothing could ruin my perfect little world.
