Next to last chapter, and the last is already in progress... I appreciate readers for following through this odd little run. Reviews VERY welcome.

Now Rachel's weeping for the children
That she thought she could not bear
And she bears a sorrow that she cannot hide
And she wishes she was with them
But she just looks and they're not there
Seems that love comes for just a moment
And then it passes on by

Wichita was on her fourth child when Little Rock got pregnant again- this time with twins. Columbus was attentive to the point of being a nuisance, and increasingly anxious. He feared losing his youngest bride, just turned twenty-one. Little Rock feared losing the baby more. But what she fretted over most was how Columbus would act when she delivered. She still had the picture etched in her mind of him lifting Danny high over his head, an expression of pure joy on her face. It was her obsession to relive that moment, with her own baby in his arms. And, it was very important to her to have a boy. She didn't think it could be the same with a girl, even after he saw him do a dance with Wichita's first baby girl in his arms, and she felt that some power in the universe owed her a boy.

She delivered two baby girls, five weeks early. It was a close thing, but both were as healthy as could be expected, fragile but perfect. Columbus didn't raise them or swing them, but held their tiny bodies tenderly and fearfully, like crystal that might break at a touch. When she saw the tip of his pinky in Lindsay's jewel-like fist, she knew that this was better than any replay of Wichita's deliveries. "Three boys and three girls," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "The perfect family." Wichita and Little Rock gave each other wary glances.

From the day she returned from the hospital, she wrapped her life around her daughters. She often wept when she held them, and sometimes held them too tightly and they cried. When her husband took her, he often cried, as viscerally as she laughed, and sometimes he held her so tight that she cried out in pain.

Lindsay and Elizabeth grew somewhat slowly in their first year, and Wichita opined more than once that this was because their mother insisted on nursing them herself. On occasion, Wichita would do something she thought would remedy the situation, and Little Rock found out about it and got angry. On one of these occasions, Columbus and Tallahassee were both within earshot. While his wives complained loudly and in detail, Columbus said with desperate enthusiasm, "So, tell me about the latest zombie kill of the week!"

Despite their quarrels, Little Rock and Wichita spent more time together, and grew closer than they hat in years. The shared bond of motherhood renewed the bonds of sisterhood, and one night, after Wichita told her sister she thought she was pregnant again, Wichita confessed her deepest fear: "Sometimes... I wonder if Columbus loves me any more, or if he ever did."

"Have you talked to him about it?"

"Yes! And you know what he said to me? `Of course I love you! You're the mother of my sons!' And I let him make love to me, but I wanted to scream, `What the *'s that supposed to mean?'" After a spate of weeping, she concluded, "You're lucky, Abbs. You're the one he's with no matter what. Me- I don't even know if he would have stayed to our first anniversary if I hadn't gotten knocked up."

Then Little Rock screeched: "Me? Lucky? Do you know how much I worried whether I was ever going to give him a baby? It wasn't just because I wanted to. I was afraid, if I didn't, or even if I didn't give him a boy, he wouldn't love me. Not the way he loves you."

Wichita wrapped her arms around her sister and said tenderly, "You... are a dumb little * head."

There were long moments of silence. Then Little Rock began to laugh, the way she laughed on her wedding night. "I think- maybe- it... runs in the family!" Then her sister started laughing even harder than she did.