Andrea put the stiff business card between her front teeth trying to get at the dough left behind from her slice of pizza. Her twin sons, Castillo and Gabriel sat at the kitchen table with her, a napkin tied around each neck, eating. With one eye closed, they ravaged and relished the golden crust, garlic and tomatoes with snorts in between bites. “Remember to chew,” she reminded her twin sons.

After the pizza and bath time, the duplicate faces put on their pajamas jabbering before crawling into bed. Castillo said, “Mommy, can we smoke in here?”
“Of course not, silly,” Gabriel echoed in an almost identical tone.
“Okay, you two, skate-off to sleep time.”
“Okay, mommy, it’s skate-off time.”

“Nothing, but nothing says goodnight like rain pelting a window. The brewing of delectable droplets of water feeding the earth and watering lakes. Nothing, but nothing defines the sentiment of have-a-good-night like turning the covers over your knees, to warm you against a cold night filled with rain,” Andrea said reciting the poem her husband David wrote and one she said every night as part of their bedtime routine. Andrea smiled as she gently laid another blanket on the boys. “A good meal, a good sleep, now, that’s a good day. Good night my boys,” Andrea said.

Andrea’s hand on the light switch, she dimmed the lamps and turned to look at the peaceful scene. The surroundings were something David created for his sons well before they were born. On one wall David painted a giraffe and marching nutcrackers, the others were frolicking mice and grazing sheep beneath a castle wall. Castillo and Gabriel’s gentle bodies lay under the paintings, against pillows, noses bent upward, just above turned-up lips blowing snores all around. Their ogre busy hands lay silent on their chests, as asleep as they were.

Later that night, Andrea dreamed she stood in water a foot deep submerged in a grand gray-blue lake. The water was cold and lapping against her rubber boots, her nose red, finger’s numb. The wind blew the boy’s boat away and Andrea waded into the water to retrieve the frivolous purchase. She handled the ominous footing, slowly, and thought the act would take seconds of actual in-the-water-time. She was wrong. Another step, then another, Andrea occupied one hand full time to hold her gray sweater shut against the cold wind coming at her torso. Andrea went for the swoop to grab the crow’s nest. The wind went for the swoop to blow on the sails, again, she stepped tenderly and reached, again, the boat blew just beyond her grasp. The motion continued with her boys on shore shouting, “Grab the hull, mommy, grab the hull.” Andrea reached for the flag and caught it. Rascal, she thought.

That same night Castillo dreamed of a great fire. There were people running in all directions. Their million movements blew the fire hotter, as it grew higher. Castillo ran around screaming and crying until an orange gigantic flame woman with a long hooked nose, wire spectacles and bald head grabbed him her hands bigger than her body. They ran into an old house where her large body broke the hardwood slats as she guided Castillo to safety. She squeezed herself into a room with only inches to spare on all sides and Castillo laughed when he thought she may not be able to get back out. Quickly she pulled out clothes for Castillo turning on the water to soak him down brushing his hair and blowing back the encroaching flames. She said to him, “Don’t dawdle, boy, don’t dawdle, run!”

That same night, in the bed next to Castillo and across the hall from Andrea, Gabriel did not dream, but snored above his turned-up lips, hand tucked under his chin.

The next day framed itself in glorious rain. It slid down the windows, drained into the pool from the house’s roof and welled-up just outside the doorstep. The two four year olds ran about the house with no one knowing how the cat got wet. Andrea carefully walked toward the kitchen table with a stack of pancakes that stood as high as her nose. She stood intrigued as Castillo told of the dream, the flames and broken wood floors. He was not afraid, but the story was hard for Castillo to describe and for Andrea to hear.

How Andrea missed David at these moments. He would be handling the boys and instinctively guiding their growing curiosity. David would be here eating pancakes, then run off to work with a finger in the air saying, “who left their toys in the hall?” Andrea drifted there often, thinking of the old times, the days they watched their waistlines and worried about house payments. The ordinary life, never the wild times, the vacations, camping or even her wedding day, ever came to mind. The days she stared out the window at him cleaning the pool, or the hamster’s cage, those were the moments she remembered of him. The moments when he was still alive and the most important part of their lives.

“So did the lady who was on fire help you, my love?”
“Yes she did mommy and she was awesome!”
“Okay. Okay, Castillo, hey, remember to chew,” she reminded the boys.