“But how can you love us both?”

Her question stopped me and I stared up at her, my mouth gaping, the realization slowly dawning. She whispered, “Our hearts are so big, Janie, that we can always love.

No matter what. We always have room to love someone else.” Then she laughed and cuddled me close. “Besides, we’re Baumgartners. We can love the whole world if we want to.”

And it was true. They loved me and they loved my brother, and we both loved them. We were a family-we were the Baumgartners, and we Baumgartners could love the whole world.

At the time, my mother was just reassuring a jealous sibling, saying something to comfort me when my world was about to expand beyond my usual, comfortable boundaries

Years later, though, pressed between two warm bodies under the sheets, I would remember her words, and they would take on a whole new meaning.

I was resistant to the idea at first, sure that I wouldn’t get enough love, enough attention, that my world would come crashing down if I included anyone else, but I was proven wrong then, and I was proven wrong later. Experience proved me wrong again and again, opening my heart wider with every new encounter.

I was a Baumgartner. I was made to love-often and well. My mother was right.

She always is.

Sometimes I think I really could love the whole world, if the world gave me a chance.

Chapter One

I usually didn’t spend the night in their bed.

Mostly it was to keep up appearances-Beth was in second grade and smart as a whip, and none of us wanted her asking questions we couldn’t answer. But it was something else, too. Ronnie and TJ’s bed was…well, it was their bed. They loved me and I loved them, and sometimes I shared their bed, but it was still…theirs. It was an unsaid sort of thing, but they wanted it like that, and really, so did I. It was better that way.