Samuel and Camilla were born two minutes and three seconds apart. Peter and Tara Jenkins welcomed their new
bundles of joy with open hearts and widespread arms. “They’re beautiful,” the nurses all said, as they peered at the
babies in the nursery.
“Look identical, not fraternal,” Lacey Henry, the head nurse, declared. She’d seen her share of newborns. “These two
are going to turn some heads, mark my words. Just look at those eyelashes, and the perfect curve on the nose.”
“Are these their first?” someone asked.
“No, I heard they have an older son, about five,” Lacey responded. She felt it was her duty to know everything about
everyone. She’d been there for twenty-five years, seen more nurses come and go than she could keep track of. Still,
she had the charm to make the new mothers feel at ease. It must be that soft, curly head of hair, and the sweet,
charming smile and her spongy middle. She looked like everyone’s favorite grandma. “But these two sure are
beauties. Mark my words; they’re going to go far with those looks.”
Peter, Tara, and Jason Jenkins lived in a cookie-cutter house placed in the middle of a tract that had been built after
the war. Subdivisions built during that time had three plans: two-bedroom one bath, three-bedroom one bath, and the
deluxe model of three-bedroom and two baths. To people driving down Pixie Lane, the floor plan was not identifiable.
All of the houses on the street appeared, from the outside, to be the same. The only difference was their placement on
the lot. You drove either to the left or right to get into the garage, and then the living room was on the adjacent side of
the house. The remaining living space, regardless of the floor plan, was placed behind the living room and garage.
Vista Oaks, like most towns after the war, advertised this subdivision as the most glamorous part of their world and
called it, “Vista de Oaks.” Every lot boasted at least one oak tree in the front, and if they were lucky, they had one in
the backyard as well. Now, more than fifty years later, those trees, if they hadn’t been cut down, were uprooting the
houses, and destroying the plumbing. Original standard home colors were beige with dark beige trim or dark beige
with light beige trim. These colors had altered greatly over the years as well, and Pixie Lane boasted a cornucopia of
colors.
Over the years, inhabitants of the houses had made improvements as well, either to the building itself or to the
landscape. The Jenkins house, when they purchased it, had not been altered from its original form. That was part of
its charm.
“Peter, look at that oak in the front. Our kids can climb the tree when they get old enough,” Tara commented the first
time they drove up.
“Honey, we don’t even have kids.” He laughed. “Don’t you think we should look inside the house before you decide
this is the one you want?”
As they walked through the house, Tara pointed at what she liked. “Peter, we can make this into a nursery. See how
the sun comes in here?”
Lucy, their Realtor, spoke up. “As you can tell, this house sits on a south-facing lot, so the window in this room will pick
up the afternoon sun, where the kitchen will catch the morning sun.” Lucy Reynolds had been a Realtor for nearly ten
years and learned early on that inserting herself in the clients’ conversation usually sold the house. Her narrow frame,
long blonde hair, sunny disposition, and broad smile made most clients instantly comfortable with her. This was her
last showing of the day, and instinct told her that Tara loved it as soon as she walked up the front steps.
“So we could actually watch the sunrise from our kitchen?” Peter joked.
“I’m not sure about that, but it is an eastern-facing view,” she responded. “I heard Tara mention kids. Are you
expecting?”
Tara beamed as she answered, “Yes, I’m four months pregnant.”
As they sat discussing the offer, Peter was a bit concerned about the size of the house. “I’m not sure about three
bedrooms and only one bathroom. I think we might be asking for trouble down the line.”
“Honey,” Tara squeezed his hand across the table, “everything else we’ve looked at in this price range only has two
bedrooms. I’d much rather have three bedrooms than two bathrooms.”
Peter started to chuckle. “Is that pregnancy logic?” he asked his wife of three years. They’d known each other since
grade school but had not really been friends. It wasn’t until after college that they ran into each other again and
started dating. Peter was a sales executive for a pharmaceutical company, and Tara was an assistant manager at the
local bank.
“No, Peter,” Tara’s eyes began to fill with tears, “that’s not pregnancy logic. That’s real logic.”
Peter realized he’d touched a raw nerve and began to backpedal. “Tara, I didn’t mean it that way. Honey, of course
this house is the best house we’ve seen for the money. I’m just concerned that we might need more than one
bathroom; that’s all.”
Swatting away her tears, she asked, “Can’t we add one later?”
“Do you like this house that much?” Peter asked.
Tara looked at him and said, “There’s something about it that feels like home; like we belong here.”
Turning toward Lucy, who silently witnessed this discussion, Peter wrote down their final offer. “Take this to the owner,
and let them know we are not moving off this number. We can’t afford anything higher. My wife’s in love with the
house, but we’re expecting our first child, and that’s all we can do.”
When Tara and Peter pulled into the driveway of that same house six years later with newborn twins, the appearance
of the front yard had dramatically changed. Tara had always dreamed of a house with a white picket fence, and Peter
had built one for her.
“You know,” she said as they drove up, “I’ll always love the fact that we’re the only house on this street with a white
picket fence. It makes our house special.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s more than the white picket fence that makes this house special,” he said, as he came around
to help her out of the car. “Let’s get you out of the car first, and then we can introduce Jason to his new brother and
sister.”
“Take ’em back. We don’t need them!” Jason screamed at his father. “Why can’t it be the way it’s always been?”
Jason started hitting his father.
Peter grabbed both of his son’s fists and calmly answered, “Jason, we talked about this, remember? Mommy’s tummy
was big, and we talked about what was happening. You, me, and Mommy sat right here on this couch.” He patted the
couch in the living room.
Tara and Peter had introduced Jason to Samuel and Camilla a few minutes earlier. They had placed the babies’ car
seats on that very same couch, and Jason had looked at both of them with disgust. He tried to pull their seats off the
couch and throw them on the ground. Tara quickly grabbed their seats and took them into the third bedroom where
their cribs were waiting. The same room just six weeks before had been a semi-office/storage room.
Peter continued talking to his oldest son. “Jason, you even helped us decorate the new room and move in the two
cribs.”
“Yeah,” he lunged toward Peter with his fists, “but that wasn’t supposed to be for babies!”
“It wasn’t?” Peter asked. “What did you think was growing in Mommy’s tummy?”
“You said I was getting a new brother and sister, I thought they’d be just like me. Eddie Loomis has a baby in his
house, and it cries all the time.”
“Well, maybe we’ll get lucky, and Camilla and Samuel won’t cry that much.”
Jason’s blue eyes overflowed with tears as he looked up at his father and quietly begged, “Daddy, can’t we send them
back?”