I was ready. Well, just about. it wouldn't take me long to change out of these mayonnaise stained sweat pants and into something presentable. Simon had been fed and bathed and was gurgling placidly in his plastic baby seat. Gavin, my five year old, was sitting under the kitchen table playing quietly with his Game Boy. The twins were setting the table above him, and my eldest child, Mary Beth, who is eight, was on tiptoes stirring the spaghetti sauce with a wooden spoon. I wiped the kitchen counter and watched her plaid cotton school dress swish around her knees with each determined stir. Mary Beth never wears pants, even though all the other girls in her class wear scruffed jeans and tee-shirts with sayings on them. My husband prefers his girls in dresses, so I never say anything about Mary Beth going down the slide in her Sunday dress or straddling the muddy logs down by the wharf. I looked at her, at her twig thin arms stirring the sauce as if it were a school project, something that must be done before something else can be gotten to.

My seven-year-old twins were chattering to each other in half-sentences and partial words, giggling. Always giggling, those two. In front of their own places they grouped little dessert bowls, a separate one for each food item. This is something new with them. A couple of months ago they decided they didn't like their food to touch each other. And it has become an ongoing battle. I looked at their white blonde hair, soft and curling around their ears, the same cowlicks in exactly the same places. Pamela Jo and Tabbitha Anne, they were named at birth, but now they are just PJ and Tabby.

I once saw a television program about multiple births. A mother of quadruplets bounced them, two on each knee, while she talked about the challenges of breastfeeding and scheduling. "But, what I want to know," said the interviewer, "is how can you possibly tell them apart!"

"Oh," said the smiling, perfect television mother, "A mother can always tell her own children apart."

When PJ and Tabby were babies I kept their hospital bracelets on for months until they were in danger of cutting off their circulation. Then I made up little bracelets of my own, ribbons where I scrawled their names in permanent felt-tip marker, a red one for Tabbitha and a pink one for Pamela. Lately, they have begun dressing alike, advice that goes against every book I have ever read on the subject. (And I have read lots.) "Never refer to them as 'the twins.' Celebrate their differences." But, instead of becoming different, they seem to be growing more alike, if that is possible; growing inward toward each other instead of outward and away.

"We're having spaghetti." I kept my voice steady. "You won't need your little dishes."

"We want plain spaghetti in one," Tabby said.

"And sauce in the other one," PJ said.

"Then we can dip the spaghetti into the sauceÉ"

"one at a time."

"Then it doesn't get so gloppy."

"We hate gloppy food."

"Gloppy food is gross."

I could hear the beeps, the growls and the cheers from the Game Boy under the table. It is useless to get Gavin to help with chores around the house, even though Troy thinks I should try. "That's part of his problem, Sadie," he tells me. "That boy has no responsibility, none whatsoever."

"But he's only five," I always argue.

One doorknob of a knee protruded from his torn jeans. He was not changed, not cleaned up, teeth not brushed, and there were smudges of dirt on his cheeks. Gavin is the prettiest of my children with his freckles and gold-flecked hair. When he laughs, his entire face lights up. But none of my children laugh much. Even Simon doesn't grin the way other babies in the nursery do on Sunday mornings when nursery helpers hold them out in their arms and coo and ahh.

The phone rang. It was Phyllis Carter from church with a prayer chain request. "Do you have a pen?" she asked.

I scrabbled for one in a kitchen drawer, found nothing, finally spotted my Bible case on the counter underneath an unopened box of cereal. I always keep a pen in there, although I'm usually too busy worrying about keeping the kids quiet, on Sunday mornings to take notes on the sermon.

"I'm ready," I said.

"There's been another missing girl. Irma and Bud Buckley's granddaughter, Ally." I sat down at the kitchen table. "They just moved here, well, about a year or so ago. Anyway, the request, and this is really sad, is that Ally has gone missing and to pray that she'll be found quickly."

"Oh no."

"It's still early so there's no reason to think this will be like the other one. She could have just wandered off. Kids are always doing that, you know. So, just pray that they'll find her."

"How long has she been gone?"

"As far as anyone can tell she left school at the proper time, just never made it home. They phoned the school, of course, and nobody's seen her since she walked around the corner from it, so Irma decided to put it on the prayer line."

I asked if there was anything we could do.

"Maybe just pass it on to Troy. They might need the men later."

After I got off the phone, I rifled through drawer after drawer trying to find the prayer list that would tell me the person on the list I was supposed to call. I couldn't find it. In the kitchen junk drawer, I piled up old phone books, note pads, calendars, endless scraps of paper, and enough pens and pencils to outfit an entire grammar school. But no list.

"Mommy," Mary Beth was talking. "Mommy."

"Hmmm?" A dozen pens fell to the floor.

"Mommy. Mom-EEEE!"

I turned to her. "Mary Beth, what is it?"

"PJ and Tabby are putting little dishes on the table again."

"I told them they could." I found the list, folded in quarters and stuck in the front of the Church Directory. I was supposed to call Ruby Fisher, an elderly widow who sat in a row of white-haired ladies near the front of the church. Gavin was adding his own sound effects to the Game Boy now, Simon was beginning to screech, and Mary Beth was sucking on the sides of her hair and shifting from foot to foot.

When I did finally get through to Ruby, Simon's screeching was so loud that Ruby had to say, "What? What?" several times before I was able to get the message to her.

After the call, I looked at the clock. Simon and his screeches would have to wait. Dealing with the little bowls would have to wait. I needed to change my clothes and run a quick comb through my hair. A shower would be nice, but there would be no time for that. There were still toys on the living room floor, two laundry baskets full of clothes to fold, Kool-Aid spills on the coffee table, and the day's stickiness still on the kitchen floor. Troy hates a sticky floor, the squooshing sound it makes under his brown loafers.

I hurriedly brushed my teeth, sopped a cold washcloth on my face and combed my hair up on the sides into the two barrettes Troy bought me. They are gaudy, I think, with blue stones that stick out, but he likes them, so I wear them. I pulled off my tee-shirt and stepped out of my sweat pants, and threw them both into the hamper. No time for a shower, so I applied plenty of deodorant and a sprinkling of Simon's baby powder. Since I recently lost three more pounds, I was able to squeeze into a new pair of jeans from K-Mart. Troy would be pleased with me for that. I put on a white ruffled blouse and carefully tucked it into the jeans all around. I am far more comfortable in baggy sweatshirts. Troy says they make me look fat, but I say they cover it up. I straightened the collar of my blouse. Earrings. I should put earrings on. The little hearts, maybe. I stood in front of the mirror and frowned. Maybe I should really put on a dress...

A piercing scream came from the kitchen and I was instantly there, lifting Simon from his baby seat, and saying, "No, Gavin, no, we don't hit." I was talking quietly, firmly, the way you're supposed to; firm, but loving. I was in the middle of a thick book on child rearing that I had taken out of the church library. Firm, but loving.

"I could hit YOU! I could squish you like a worm!" Gavin screamed at me and waved the plastic Game Boy in my face.

"No, Gavin, you don't hit Mommy. That's a bad boy."

He threw the Game Boy across the room, and it clanged against the bottom of the refrigerator. I put Simon down and lunged for it.

"I want that!" he yelled.

"You broke it, Gavin. You broke your toy," I said examining the crack that ran around the battery compartment like a stray hair.

"I don't CARE!"

"If you break things, you can't play with them."

"I WANT it."

I could see the little arms stiffening. His legs. His cheeks puffing out. The redness there. I reached for him, held onto him, but he thrashed his way out of my arms. I let him go. I knew his screaming would make my chest tighten, make my stomach hurt. When he got started he could scream for hours, thrashing, throwing things and there would be nothing I could do. I handed the Game Boy back to him and he threw it again. Don't come home now, Troy, I prayed. Please not now, not yetÉ

I touched his hair. "Gavin,"

"I said. I HATE you!"

"GavinÉ"

"GET IT FOR ME."

I did. I handed it to him and he trotted into the living room. I was able to breathe again.

"You be good now, Gavin," I called after him as a kind of benediction. He didn't acknowledge me.

In the kitchen, I could hear Mary Beth, sober, serious. "But you can't have the little dishes. It's wrong!" And I wanted to grab this daughter who of all my children is most like me and say, "Mary Beth, can't you just be quiet? Can't you just do what they want? Let people have what they want. Life is so much easier when you just let people have what they want." But I can't say these life lessons that I have learned to her. I know that much, at least.

One of the twins said, "We can have separate dishes if we want, Mommy said."

"But, it's WRONG. Daddy says." She was running a clump of her dampish hair through her fingers over and over.

"You're such a crybaby," PJ said.

"Crybaby. Crybaby," Tabby said.

"You have to change it." Mary Beth reached for the bowls.

"You're not the boss of us!"

"Mary Beth," I said, "it's okay. Just leave them be." And I held out my arms to her. She came, the way she always does, the way none of my other children do. "But Daddy will be mad. He will, Mommy, you know he will." I stroked her hair, felt the damp strands near her face. When I let go of her she fled to her room. I said to the twins, "Why torment your sister? Why make her cry?"

PJ said, "But Mommy, she's such a baby."

And Tabby said, "Everything has to be her way."

"We're hungry, Mommy," PJ said. "Can we just eat without Daddy?"

"Please? He's always late."

"No, we have to eat together."

In the living room, Gavin was sitting cross-legged under the piano bench and had turned the television volume to a deafening level. Some program about aliens. From the coffee table I pocketed the remote. As soon as I heard the van pull into the driveway, I would flick off the television. Simon was screeching, Mary Beth was wailing in her room, and the twins were un-setting the table, removing the dishes one by one, and putting them on the counter in neat stacks.

"What are you doing?"

"We don't want to eat," PJ announced.

"We changed our minds," Tabby said.

I quickly re-set the table with a plate each for Tabby and PJ, and raced to change a screaming Simon. His diaper was dirty, his nose was running, his clothes were a hopeless mess. Were there any clean ones? He could use a bath. So could I, now, for that matter. I would have to change my blouse before Troy got home. When Simon was clean again, I strapped him back into his baby seat. My stomach hurt; my jeans felt too tight. I caught a glimpse of myself in the full length mirror and wondered whatever made me think I looked good in these jeans? I grabbed an extra large tee-shirt from my bottom drawer. One of my hair clips had slipped down, so I took them both out and brushed my hair back into a blue scrunchy.

Troy was still not home. The sauce was now overdone, the top of it crusted with dark red bubbles. I switched off the burner and sat down at the table across from Mary Beth who had emerged from her room and was hugging Miss Piggy and sucking on her hair.

"Mary Beth, shouldn't you leave Miss Piggy in bed? And how about taking your hair out of your mouth, hmm?" I tried to sound gentle, but firm.

She kept sucking, kept hugging.

"Do you have homework you can get started on?"

"But I'm hungry."

I grabbed some crackers from the cupboard. "Here, have these," I told her. "Do you have any homework?"

She shook her head. "I can't do it, Mommy. I can't!"

"Why not?"

"I always get it wrong."

"But you only got two wrong on your quiz."

"Yeah, but Jason next to me got a hundred and said I copied. But I didn't."

She was shaking her head, and strings of her hair like wet yarn flapped across her cheeks. "He told Mrs. Barry."

"Don't chew on your hair Mary Beth."

"I can't Mommy. I can't do it."

"Mary Beth," I said as gently as I could, "why don't you bring your questions down here and we'll have a look at them together." I hate this early evening time of the day when the children are all at home and cranky and everyone is hungry and tired and waiting for Troy and I'm trying to make supper and make sure everything stays clean. My favorite time of the day is early afternoon when the four older children are at school and Simon is down for his nap. I climb into bed and read books from the church library. I read all sorts of things, books on how to be a better wife, how to be a better mother, but I especially enjoy novels, imagining myself in all those places, living lives I never will. I used to play the piano when the older children napped. It never seemed to bother them. But I haven't touched my piano for a long time. Now, I just read.

She returned with her books and I picked up a whimpering Simon, held him wheezing in the crook of my arm while I bent over the kitchen table with Mary Beth and her arithmetic problems.

Half an hour later I heard Troy thundering, "What in the name of blazes is this kid sitting in front of the TV for? I've half a mind to get rid of this idiot box once and for all!"

I rose, dropping one of Mary Beth's books onto the floor.

"You're late." It was all I could think of to say. I bent down, still holding Simon and retrieved the book.

"You're late? That's the first thing I get when I come home? You're late? Not, hello. Not, how was your day? But, you're late?"

"I'm sorry."

"I work all day. I come home, I want a little bit of peace and quiet. I walk in the door and the TV's so loud I can hear it halfway down the street. Kids yelling. And what's this disaster in the kitchen, now?"

"I was helping Mary Beth with her homework," I said.

"And you let her throw every pen and pencil we own onto the kitchen floor where people can trip over them?"

"That was me. I'm sorry." I bent to gather them up, still holding Simon. "There was a prayer request. I couldn't find a pen."

"All that junk and you couldn't find a pen? I see at least a dozen on the floor."

"None of them work."

"Then throw them out. For Pete's sake, just throw the blasted things out!"

"I'm sorry."

Huddled into herself across the table, Mary Beth was vigorously sucking on her hair, two hanks of it, on either side of her face.

I put Simon into his plastic seat, ignored his cries. Troy carried in a wriggling Gavin and sat him down. The twins had still not emerged.

"Mary Beth," Troy said, "go get your sisters."

"How was your day?" I said, ladling out the overcooked noodles.

He grunted and sat down. "Fine, Sadie, just fine. You've got spaghetti sauce all over that shirt of yours, by the way."

I looked down. "I'm sorry. I'll go change."

"Don't bother now. Not for my sake."

"PJ and Tabby don't want to come," announced Mary Beth from the doorway.

"They don't want to eat?" I asked.

"They said they don't want to eat with us anymore because they don't like the sound of people chewing."

Troy threw back his chair. "I'll go get those two. If they think they can get away with-"

"No, no." I put up my hand. "You eat. I'll get them. You just sit. Relax. Sit."