"They're okay, right?"
Jackson looks at me where we sit on a park bench, watching our two children in the field in front of us. He rests an arm along the back of the bench and touches my opposite shoulder.
"They're picking flowers, babe," he says. "They're fine."
I sigh, worrying my lower lip with my teeth. I try to believe him, let his words convince me, but it's hard.
The dandelion that Harriet holds in her chubby fist reminds me of her older brother. Though he's older, he's always a few steps behind. He's seven to her two and a half, but Harriet is Samuel's protector. Her bones are strong while his are weak, and she would never let anything hurt him.
Intentionally. She is still a toddler, after all.
I smile as I watch our children, Harriet blowing with all her might to get the dandelion seeds to disperse. But when they don't, she resorts to a new method called: sticking the entire flower in her mouth.
"Hattie, no!" I say, standing quickly to rush over. "We don't…" I sigh, unable to keep the smile off my face. "We don't eat flowers, honey. Flowers are for looking with our eyes. Not for tasting."
She sticks her tongue out, covered in fluffy spores. "Yucky," she says, spitting.
"Yes, yucky," I say, wiping them off with my finger.
"Sissy…" Samuel pretend-scolds, which makes Harriet giggle.
"Not yucky, yummy!" she says, contradicting herself from just moments ago. She picks another flower, some sort of orchid this time, and extends her arm so it's right in my face. "Mama eat," she insists.
"No," I laugh, gently pushing her hand away. "Mama doesn't eat flowers."
"Mama, yes!" Harriet giggles. "Mama, yes eat flower!"
Samuel bursts into laughter as well, which makes me smile. I love it when both of my children laugh.
"Oh, you think this is funny, too?" I ask, wheeling around to face my son. But as I go, my hip knocks him and he falls to the ground, landing with a bounce on his butt. "Oh, Sammy!" I say, then look over my shoulder. "Jackson!" My eyes flit to my daughter. "Hattie, go get Daddy. Quickly, please."
Harriet runs off on her wobbly legs and I can hear her say something along the lines of, "Daddy, Sammy fall!"
Jackson makes it over in a split second, before Samuel can even say anything.
"Do you hurt, bud?" he asks, squatting down. "Was there a snap?"
"I'm okay," Samuel says, letting me pull him gingerly up by the hands. "I only fell a tiny bit."
"I knocked him down," I say, feeling incredibly guilty. "Jackson, I-"
"He's fine, kitty," Jackson says, brushing his son's shoulders off. "No pain?"
Samuel shakes his head.
Jackson looks at me. "No pain," he says, reassuringly. "It's all good."
I look at the little boy who resembles his father so much in this light, the same facial expression and all. "I'm so sorry, honey," I say.
"Just an accident, mommy," he says, giving me a smile. "Can I go play now?"
"Sure," I say, standing up fully. "Sure, go on. Go play with your sister."
I follow Jackson back to where we'd been sitting, and I know he can tell it's still on my mind.
"April," he says. "It was an accident. A fall, like any other kid. He got back up and dusted himself off. You didn't hurt him."
"But he's not like any other kid," I say, crossing one leg over the other.
"I know that."
"And it doesn't matter that I didn't hurt him," I say. "Well, it does. But the fact is that I could've."
He caps a hand over my knee. "But you didn't. You gotta breathe, babe."
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to center myself. I know why I'm so anxious, there's no question.
"Tomorrow will be fine," Jackson tells me, his voice low and soothing. "It'll be perfectly fine. Fun, even."
"That's optimistic."
"Okay, tolerable," he compromises, touching my chin.
Tomorrow, my sister Libby is having an Easter celebration at her house. My sisters and all their kids will be there, along with my parents. We're going for an Easter egg hunt, an early dinner, then church in the evening. It doesn't sound like much, but it's already given me stress hives that I've been trying, without success, to get rid of.
"There's gonna be a ton of kids," I say, wringing my hands as my eyes stay cemented on my children, who play gently with one another. "Rough kids."
"We'll talk to them," Jackson says. "We always do. It's been seven years, kitty. They know by now."
"You're overestimating my sisters and their hellion children," I say, itching my arms. Jackson's hand stops me before I can give myself a rash even worse than the one I already have.
"We can handle anything they throw at us," he says, interlacing our fingers.
I keep my eyes on Samuel. He's smiling and laughing as Harriet picks bunches of flowers, as much as her hands can carry, then walks over and lays them on his lap. His tiny legs are overflowing.
"But can he?"
When we walk into my sister's house, it's already buzzing with activity and sound. I'm holding Samuel in my arms while Jackson has Harriet, and I don't plan on letting go anytime soon.
"April!" Libby says, greeting us with open arms. "Jackson. And my cute little niece and nephew!"
"Hey, Lib," Jackson says, turning his cheek as she kisses it.
"I'm so glad you guys made it," she says. "Dinner's almost ready."
"Sorry we're late," I say, carefully adjusting my son. "There were a few potty emergencies. We're trying to potty-train Hattie."
"No problem," Libby says. "Wanna come in?" She looks at the kids as we make our way into the house. "Your cousins are downstairs in the basement. They've been waiting for you!"
Harriet shrieks excitedly, wriggling like a fish to get down. Jackson lets her go, and I feel Samuel's cold hands on either side of my neck.
"Mama, can I go play, too?" he asks, his little voice high and tentative.
"I…" I swipe his curls away from his eyes and look to my sister. "You talked to the kids, right?" I ask.
"Hmm?" she says, distracted as she takes a casserole out of the oven. "What's up?"
"Did you talk to Tyler and Colin?" I ask.
"Oh," she says, realizing. "Yes, I did. They'll be gentle." She touches my cheek, then Samuel's. "Don't worry. We know to be careful around this one by now, it's been 7 years with no accidents!"
If I'm not mistaken, Jackson knocks on the wooden table behind me.
"They know," she says seriously. "And Kimmie talked to Emma and Claire, too. I heard Alice saying something to Caroline when they walked in the door. Sam will be perfectly fine."
I still hesitate to set him down, though.
"Duck, take a breath. Let him go have fun with his cousins." She looks at Samuel. "You wanna go play downstairs?"
He nods, a big smile on his face. I feel Jackson's hand on the small of my back, rubbing slow circles.
"It's okay, kitty," he says. "I'll go check on him in a few minutes."
I look over my shoulder. "Yeah?"
He nods.
"Okay, Sammy," I say, setting him down. "Remember, be-"
"Be careful and think twice!" he says, finishing my reminder. "I will, mama."
I watch him scamper off, then lean against the counter to brace my weight on my palms. I let out a long breath, feel Jackson's hand on my back still anchoring me to earth, and tell myself not to obsess.
He wants to be a regular kid so badly. And I want to treat him like one, but it's just not that easy.
I try and let myself get distracted in setting the table for Easter dinner. Soon, my two other sisters filter into the kitchen and Jackson leaves to check on our kids, and we fall back into our old routine from when we all lived at home.
I sit on the counter and hold the cloth-wrapped silverware on my lap, smiling as we trade light conversation back and forth.
"I can't believe how big Hattie is," Alice says, grabbing glasses from a high cupboard. "Last time I saw her, she could barely walk!"
I laugh. "She can walk, alright," I say. "She keeps me busy, that's for sure. We're almost done potty-training. She's done really well."
"I saw her holding onto Sammy for dear life," Kimmie says.
"Yeah," I say, nodding. "They're cute that way. They're close, like us."
"Sweet," Kimmie says. "I wish Emma and Claire were like that, but good lord. Those two fight more in a day than we did in a year. They give me gray hair."
"They're getting to be that age," Libby says.
Kimmie lets out a long sigh. "I know," she says. "Believe me, I know."
"I have no complaints," Alice says. "The baby of the family has the baby of the family! That is, until Duckie pops out another one."
I elbow her. "I'm not planning on it anytime soon."
"The way Jackson looks at you, I beg to differ," Libby chimes in.
"Seriously…" Kimmie says, smirking.
"My ears are ringing..." The four of us look to the door, where Jackson saunters in, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Speak of the devil," Alice says, giggling.
"I always know when there's a Kepner sister gossiping about me," he says. "It's a sixth sense."
We all roll our eyes and laugh, and my husband comes to stand between my parted knees. He rests his hands on my hip creases and slips his thumbs through my belt loops, edging his face closer to touch the tip of my nose with his.
"Like I said," Alice mutters, breezing by. "Any day now."
I ignore her and let him kiss me. I circle my arms around his neck and hold him close for a moment, drinking in the love between us, traded without words.
As all my sisters leave the room, I kiss the corner of his mouth and he melts into me.
"How were the-" I begin, but get cut off by an urgent wail.
"Mama, Daddy!"
Footsteps follow the voice, and suddenly Harriet appears in the kitchen with a frightened look on her face.
"Mama, Daddy!" she says again, practically wheezing. "Sammy fall!"
I scramble down from the counter and Jackson is right on my heels as we head to the basement.
"I was just down there," he says breathlessly as we take the stairs two at a time. "He was fine."
"There!" Harriet says, pointing. "Mama, Sammy!"
I see him without her having to tell me, and both Jackson and I rush to his side. He's not crying; he almost never cries when he breaks, unless it's a really, really bad one.
"A break," he says. "I heard a snap. My arm."
I see bruising, which is a telltale sign that there's a broken bone beneath the skin. I look at Jackson, who's already situating Samuel in his arms.
"We have to get him to a hospital," I say.
"I know," he says, and I follow him up the stairs.
Jackson puts his shoes on with our son in his arms, and I tell my sisters what's going on.
"We'll keep Hattie here," Libby says, one hand on my upper arm. "April, I'm so sorry. This wasn't supposed to happen."
"It was an accident," I say, though my words are thin. I know I can't blame anyone, but I should've never taken my eyes off of him. He's not a normal kid; he can't get up after falling only to laugh and fall again.
When he falls, he doesn't bend. He breaks.
I throw my purse over my shoulder and am just about to get in the car when I hear an insistent cry from the house. As I look for the source, it gets louder and I see Harriet wobbling towards us with her shoes on the wrong feet and tears streaming down her face.
"I come with!" she shrieks, arms straight out and reaching for me.
"Honey," I say, lifting her off the cold pavement. "You don't wanna stay here with your aunties while we take Sammy to the hospital?"
She wipes her cheeks free of tears and presses her face into my neck. "I come," she says. "My Sammy."
"Okay," I say, partly because her love for him is so sweet and partly because I don't have time to argue. "Okay. Let's go."
Since the hospital closest to Libby's house isn't the one that Jackson and I work at, we have to show written proof of Samuel's disease so they don't see his scans and think we've been repeatedly abusing our child. After the paperwork is put through and the doctors know we're legitimate, he's X-rayed and casted within an hour.
After all the hype has died down, we're silently gathered around his hospital bed. Samuel's eyes are heavy as he sits there, the huge cast on his arm dwarfing his tiny frame, and Harriet is relaxed on my chest with her thumb in her mouth. Jackson is scratching my back with his fingernails, and I'm trying to slow my thoughts down.
"I'm okay, mama," Samuel says, out of the blue.
I force a smile. "I know, honey," I whisper, keeping my voice low so it won't jolt the baby out of her sleep-dazed state.
"I was having fun with my cousins," he says. "It was an accident. I just wanted to play."
"I know you did," I say. I look at his face and my heart breaks. His eyes are so eager, so desperate to be a normal, rough-and-tumble kid, but he'll simply never be that lucky.
But I tell myself that we're all lucky that he's alive in the first place. Alive and functional, just very fragile.
"Sorry I ruined Easter," he mumbles, those eager eyes growing shiny with tears.
"No," Jackson says, leaning forward and taking his son's hand. "You didn't ruin it, babe." He clears his throat. "You made it better."
"I did?"
I look at my husband, who continues to amaze me every day. The amount of love he has for his children is insurmountable; when he became a father, I came to know and fall in love with a completely different side of him. The side that would do anything to see his son and daughter smile.
"Definitely," he says. "Sometimes, less is more. Aunt Lib's house is fun, but it's so loud."
"So loud," I echo, and Jackson flashes me a warm look.
"I don't know about you, but I'm happier here," Jackson says, nodding convincingly. "It's quiet, it's calm, you can order anything off the menu right there, and… it's just the four of us. I like that a whole lot better. I got my three favorite people right in front of me."
I hold back my tears and take Jackson's free hand, squeezing for good measure.
"It is better," I say, and Harriet's breathing deepen as she falls asleep on me.
I realize that I'm not only saying it for Samuel's sake, but because I believe it. These three are all I need - and as a family, no matter how many breaks occur, we'll always be there to mend them.