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Five-year-old twins Ellie and Anna, dressed in matching pink polka-dot bikini bathing suits, squealed as they ran around Rachel’s apartment.

Anna was the fair-skinned child with a full blond ponytail and peaches and cream complexion, whereas Ellie had olive skin and her ponytail was a deep, rich brown.

Both wore blue sunglasses and flip-flops.

Rachel’s artist’s eye allowed her to coordinate the colors of a cake as easily as her girls’ swim apparel.

As I leaned into the doorjamb of their apartment, cradling another ginger ale, I watched the girls chanting “Going to the beach” as they ran around the overstuffed sofa.

Rachel’s second-floor place was bigger than mine, though by most apartment standards it was small.

However, she made the best of the space.

The sofa was also a pullout bed. Storage chests doubled as coffee and end tables.

Shelves lined the entire north wall and exhibited a neatly organized collection of books, pictures, and knickknacks.

The dining table was round and sat four, but there were leaves somewhere, which extended the eating space.

Off to the side was a small L-shaped kitchen outfitted with a full pot rack, butcher-block island, and narrow granite countertops.

Her stove was electric and small, nothing special, but she’d baked delicacies in the oven.

Dishes filled the sinks, and a glance into her bedroom and the girls’ revealed unmade beds.

Any available wall space showcased pictures of the twins.

It seemed every moment from birth until now had been documented.

And of course there were pictures of Mike.

In one shot he hugged Rachel and her very pregnant belly.

In another he looked bleary eyed and tired as he cuddled his infant daughters.

In another, he stood behind the counter of the bakery, grinning broadly.

Rachel and Mike had met in high school. His home life had not been the best. I knew his parents were divorced, and his dad had moved away by the time he’d met Rachel. He’d fallen in love with her and with the entire McCrae clan, who offered a sense of security he’d never enjoyed.

He and I had never gotten along. We could be polite, but he enjoyed making me the butt of jokes that weren’t funny.

The jokes all had to do with my not being a real McCrae.

I could look back now and recognize he was jealous of my spot in the family.

He wanted to nudge me out and take the lone spot for the non-McCrae McCrae.

But I’ve always said never cross swords with an adoptee , especially if they have abandonment issues.

We’re tenacious fighters, and my grip on this family would have to be pried out of my cold dead hands. We bickered a lot.

“I get to go in the ocean first,” Ellie announced.

“No, I get to go in the ocean first,” Anna countered.

The girls volleyed words and declarations back and forth. Soon a headache pounded behind my eyes as Rachel calmly packed the final items for the girls.

“How do you do it?” I asked.

She didn’t look up from the suitcase as she counted, for the second time, sets of socks. “Do what?”

“The kids. I think I’d run screaming into the street.”

A faint smile lifted the edges of her mouth. “There are days when I’m tempted.”

As if realizing they were the center of conversation, the girls stopped and stared at their mother and then me. Anna, the more aggressive of the twins, looked at me with a clear, direct gaze. “How come you and Mom aren’t coming to the beach?”

“Got a kitchen to renovate, kid,” I said. “Can’t knock out walls from the beach.”

“But Jean Paul is building the kitchen,” Ellie said.

“Someone has to be there to answer questions.”

“Like what kind of questions?” Anna asked.

I pressed the cool can of ginger ale to the side of my head. “I don’t know.”

“How come you don’t know?” Ellie said.

“I just don’t.”

Anna studied me. “But how come?”

“I don’t know Jean Paul’s question until he asks it. And only when he asks it can I figure out an answer.”

“What if he doesn’t have any questions?” Anna said.

“He will.”

“How do you know?” Ellie said.

I glanced at Rachel, who grinned. “You do this all the time?”

“All the time.”

I sipped my ginger ale. There was a doc-in-the-box medical center opening at eight, and I planned to be first in line for a blood test. I’d never prayed so hard for the flu.

Anna ran up to me and showed me her hair bow. “Do you like pink?”

“Pink.” I scrunched up my face as if thinking. “On you, it’s very pretty. But it’s not my first choice.”

“What color do you like?”

“Right now?” I sipped my soda. “Plain white.”

Heavy footsteps sounded outside Rachel’s apartment, and we all turned to see Mom and Dad dressed in shorts and matching Hawaiian shirts.

The shirts had to have been Mom’s idea. Back in the day, Dad would never have been caught dead in such a getup.

But then he’d never been going on vacation.

He’d worked seven days a week for most of his life, and not once had he closed the bakery outside the few weeks after the holidays.

Since he’d retired a few years ago, they’d driven to a dozen different cities.

I’d never figured my folks for the wandering, traveling kind, but then a lifetime was a long time to work on a bucket list.

The girls squealed louder as they ran up to Mom and Dad. Both my parents laughed and hugged the girls close. No denying Ellie and Anna were getting the fun vacation energy my parents had never been able to lavish on their own children.

Rachel zipped up the suitcase and hauled it off the couch. “So,” Dad said, giving me a hug. “How goes the renovation?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t had a look.”

“Nope, you girls are running the show.” His cheery tone had me wondering if he believed the words or had practiced them so many times he could sound convincing. “I’m a bystander.”

Mom laughed. “I threatened to break his feet if he looked.”

Dad shrugged. “I wasn’t going to look.”

“Yes, you were,” Mom said.

I’d been careful since taking over the bakery to minimize how much I told Dad about business problems. He’d carried the load of working and raising a family for a long time, and those old work habits, so deeply ingrained, could make tugging him back into the fray easy.

After all he’d done for us, it would break my heart to see him working again.

He and Mom really did deserve to savor their golden years.

“It’s good. We packed up all the equipment yesterday and demoed the office wall. A little slow going because we want to reuse the brick.”

His gaze grew wistful. “Spent many an hour in that office. Like an old friend, as far as I am concerned.”

“Yeah, I’ll miss her, too, but she had to take one for the team. We need the space for the freezer. But no worries, we’ve talked about building a new office in the basement.”

Old Spice aftershave wafted around as he gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek. “That’s my girl. And you have Rachel and Margaret to help.”

“I’ll have Rachel,” I said. “Margaret has a great job up in Saint Mary’s County. A big dig.”

He frowned. “She didn’t tell me.”

Thanks, Margaret, you coward. “She’s excited and rushed. And with the shop closed, there really isn’t much for her to do.”

He nodded. “When she’s not busy, she grumbles and complains.”

“You’ve noticed?”

He chuckled. “I have.”

“Frank,” Mom said, “if we don’t get on the road now, we’re going to hit traffic. It’ll take us every bit of six hours to get to Nags Head, and I don’t want to waste a minute of beach time.”

The girls squealed. Dad clapped his hands together and laughed. “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

The six of us proceeded down the stairs and out the back alley, where Dad had parked his white Buick last night. The girls scrambled into car seats Rachel had installed this morning, and as Dad crammed the girls’ bag into the trunk, Mom gave me a hug.

“You look tired.” She spoke softly so Dad couldn’t hear. “Are you feeling all right, honey?”

“Never better, Mom. Please go and take your vacation.”

“Are you sure?” Her blue eyes darkened with mother’s guilt and worry. “I can always stay and take care of you.”

A part of me wanted to pull her aside and ask, What does pregnant feel like? But that question would have sent both my parents into a hysterical tailspin. They’d cancel their vacation and spend the week hovering over me.

No, this very explosive question—if I was lucky—would never, ever be asked.

Rachel kissed her girls, Dad slid behind the wheel, and Mom hugged us both again. Finally, after a great deal of fanfare, my parents and nieces set off on the grand beach vacation.

As the car turned the corner and vanished out of sight, Rachel and I stood there, savoring the silence.

“Amazing how much noise two well-behaved little girls can make,” I said.

Rachel shook her head. “They weren’t trying to be loud.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Any bets on how soon it’ll take for the girls to break Mom and Dad?”

I sipped my soda. “Three or four days.”

Rachel shook her head. “This time tomorrow they’ll be wondering what truck hit them.”

“Mom swears this is going to be so much fun.”

“ Too much fun.”

I laughed. “Three days. They’ll cut it short in three days.”

“Two days,” Rachel said, extending her hand.

“And the winner gets what?”

“A free round of drinks at O’Malley’s. You can name your poison.”

Drinks. If this pink-plus problem didn’t clear up, my poison was going to be milk.

Making a lame excuse to Rachel about a drugstore run for peanut candy bars and a Diet Coke, I left the bakery for the doctor’s office. Weekend office hours began at eight, and by the time I drove the five miles and parked, it was 8:20. Already, the waiting room was full.

I signed in and spoke to the receptionist through the little glass partition. “What’s the wait look like?”