The look she gave him this time was something else entirely a slow, eloquent expression that contained within it approximately thirty years of accumulated evidence to the contrary.
"Cute," she repeated, with the careful enunciation of a woman tasting a word and finding it wholly insufficient.
"You and your brother almost sent me to an early grave." She shook her head, and the memories seemed to arrive in a procession she had not asked for.
"Climbing things you had absolutely no business climbing. Fighting each other from morning until evening. Do you have any idea, any idea at all how lucky you are right now?"
Julian pressed his lips together to keep from smiling.
"That's fair," he said. "That is entirely fair."
"Mm." She looked back at Amara and the babies, and the wistfulness returned, gentler now.
Julian was quiet for a moment. He looked at his wife, still moving softly around the room, still entirely absorbed, still wholly unaware she had an audience.
