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Noah offers the room a shy grin and moves in front of my legs.

“Auntie Tam was curious about the snake you found,” I tell him.

Noah turns to Tamara and holds his arms apart. “He wasbig.”

I have to hold back a laugh. The snake was about a foot long, hardly big. Big enough to scare the hell out of Addy, though. I tilt my head to look at her and lose all hope of containing myself. The look of utter horror on her face sends me into a fit of laughter. “It wasn’tthatbig,” I manage to say.

“It was huge!” Addy says.

I double over in the chair.

“It was cute,” Vicki says.

“It was a snake!” Addison argues. “It’s not funny, Emma. Snakesbite.”

Addison makes me giggle. I'm tempted to remind her she’s caught a few things over the years thatbite,from spiders to turtles. Most recently, she cornered an opossum who wandered into our garage. Rather than simply opening the garage door for the little guy to go back outside, Addy designed an elaborate yet harmless trap with one of my mother’s old cat carriers. She argued she should let him go somewhere away from the cars that come and go. I gently reminded her the opossum likely lived close to the house and found his way inside when she came home late and forgot to close the garage. Addy shrugged and grinned. She wanted Noah to be able to see the opossum up close. If it weren’t for King, she probably would have tried to convince me Oscar, the opossum, needed a new home and set out with my father to build him a little opossum condominium. Sometimes, Addy is the biggest kid in my house. It’s one reason I love her so much. I swear Noah gets his zookeeper gene from Addy, minus his fascination with snakes.

“Wasn’t it a garter snake? That’s what Em told me,” Tamara says.

“Snake, Tam. Abigsnake,” Addison says.

Addy is stunned when I leave my chair and pull her into my arms for a kiss.

“Em?”

“You are adorable sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Addison asks.

Tamara groans. “Oh, my God. You two have been together for over a decade; shouldn’t you be more like Archie and Edith by now?”

Addy looks at me lovingly as she addresses Tamara. “I think it’s more like a sequel—Hannah in the Middle, maybe?” she offers.

I chuckle. “Just—please—leave the wild animals in the wild.”

Addy winks and kisses my cheek. “All right, Meathead, let’s get going,” she tells Tamara.

Christie and I exchange an amused glance as Tamara grumbles and follows Addison to the kitchen.

Noah looks up at me curiously. “Mommy?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Does Auntie Tam have meat in her head?” Noah asks innocently.

The room bursts into laughter as I pick Noah up and hug him. “No, honey. It’s just Momma’s silly way of telling Auntie Tam she loves her. You can help Tam find some frogs at the pond, okay?”

Noah kisses my cheek. “Okay, Meathead.”

I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t help it. Addy will have some explaining to do to Noah about why calling people a meathead is not a great idea. For now, I’m content to accept his innocent endearment. I lower him back to the floor, lean down, and whisper into his ear. “Meathead is a special thing between Momma and Tam, okay?” I tell him.

“But I love you,” he whispers to me.

“And I love you. And do you know what I love more than anything?”

Noah shakes his head.

“Being your Mommy,” I tell him.