We were gathered on the porch waiting for Sean to come home. My hair was dancing around my face in a neener-neener-it’s-humid halo and my feet were grubby and battered from puttering barefoot all morning. My arms were wrapped around my knees as I leaned back into the bench watching them. Three stair step heads, swinging tousled tresses out of pale, bright and dark blue eyes. They were swinging legs and arms every which way over the balustrade and making sounds of exuberance that exhausted and lifted me at once. A navy masked bird of some variety kept swooping low and alighting on the birdfeeder before dashing away as if the girls were giving chase. “Mama, why’s he go so fast like that?” Briar…

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