Both my girls are home now they have been separated for four days. This is how they love each other: they compare their bodies; height, weight. Olivia shows Bella a new scar and it goes on like this for twenty minutes—what has wounded them while they were apart. Isabel says, I ate a hot dog for breakfast and no one stopped me. I sat in the front seat of the car and I did not die.

Sometimes I feel bad that I have never loved any adult the way I love my children. I know their smells. I can feel them enter a room without turning around. I sometimes feel frightened that when they are old enough to take an account they will say, “she has never loved anyone like us” and I will be blamed.