We were a tight little unit, the three of us. People used to assume there was a sad story behind a single dad with twins, and there was, but they never guessed it was also the happiest one I had.
Last Friday was the big one.
Graduation.
The boys were upstairs getting ready, nervous as cats, straightening ties neither of them knew how to tie — I did both, same as I’d done everything else — and arguing good-naturedly about which girls they were going to ask for the first dance at the after-party.
I stood in the hallway in the one good shirt I owned, just watching them, and I felt the whole seventeen years sitting warm in my chest. We’d made it. The two babies nobody else wanted were about to walk across a stage in their caps and gowns, and I had gotten them there, one warmed bottle and one painted fence at a time.
