When there was only a puddle of syrup on the plate, Heather said, “My mama’s gonna have a baby. She says God will give us a little brother or a sister. She says we don’t get to pick.”

I leaned on my mop for a moment and considered this news. It explained the unpleasant noises coming from the bathroom. I could not think of one single thing to say, so I nodded. Heather wriggled off the chair and ran to the switch to turn on the overhead fan to dry the floor quickly, as I always did.

“It’s true the baby won’t come for a long time?” the little girl asked me.

“That’s true,” I said.

“Tyler says Mama’s tummy will get real big like a watermelon.”

“That’s true, too.”

“Will they have to cut her open with a knife, like Daddy does the watermelon?”

“No.” I hoped I wasn’t lying. “She won’t pop, either,” I added, just to cover another anxiety.

“How will the baby get out?”

“Moms like to explain that in their own way,” I said, after I’d thought a little. I would rather have answered her matter-of-factly, but I didn’t want to usurp Carol’s role.

Through the sliding glass doors to the backyard (doors that were perpetually decorated with handprints) I could see that Dawn had carried her Duplos into the sandbox. They’d have to be washed off. Tyler was firing the soft projectiles of some Nerf weapon in the general direction of a discarded plastic soda bottle he’d filled with water. The two seemed to be fine, and I couldn’t see any danger actually lurking. I reminded myself to check again in five minutes, since Carol was definitely indisposed.

With Heather at my heels, I went to the room she shared with her sister and began to change the sheets. I figured that any second, Heather would exhaust her attention span and go find something else to do. But instead, Heather sat on a child-sized Fisher-Price chair and observed me with close attention.