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"Daddy!" Rose shrieked from the living room, her voice carrying from the open space and into the kitchen.
Robby froze at hearing the name in the middle of pressing two pieces of sandwich bread together, making a post nap lunch for the twins—peanut butter and strawberry jam for Madeline because she hates grape jelly, peanut butter and banana for Rose... because she hates the texture of jelly.
He carefully set Rose's sandwich onto her plastic purple segmented plate as his brow furrowed, his head craning around the side of the kitchen banister.
"What is it, Rosie? Everything okay in there?"
Another shriek and some shuffling could be heard from both girls over the sound of their latest media obsession. An animated Korean girl group movie about friends and magic and music that Dennis suggested they play for them a few months back.
Big mistake, in hindsight. All it took was one watch, now they're obsessed.
They watch it at least twice a day, sometimes more if they get restless, and often demanded that their parents watch it with them.
Robby was really starting to hate seeing that dumb blue tiger.
Neither girl answered Robby, so he tried again.
"Rose? Maddy?" Another shuffle and a yelled 'ouch', followed by a thump could be heard, then a high pitched squeal. Robby sprang into action and quickly walked around the kitchen barrier and into the living room, just in time to see Maddy gripping her sister's dark curls hard at the root.
Robby stepped between the two, gently but firmly trying to open his daughter's death grip . "Maddy, let go of your sister's hair right now."
Maddy's face scrunched up tight at his demand, her instinct to defy warring with the realization she'd been caught. She shook her blonde head hard.
"No."
Robby sighed.
"Maddy."
She shook her head again as her grip tightened, making Rose squeal louder.When that didn't work, he carefully wedged a finger between her fist and Rose's curls, prying them apart one finger at a time. Maddy let out a sound of protest as Rose finally stumbled free, immediately bursting into fresh tears as she tumbled into Robby's arms.
Robby winced as she buried her face against the shoulder of his dark blue t-shirt, still hiccuping around her crying. He lifted her and rocked automatically, the motion more instinct than thought after five years of parenthood.
"There we go. Deep breaths, Rosie. You're okay."
Rose clung tighter to his shirt as across from them Maddy immediately scooted backward into the couch cushions, crossing her arms so tightly they practically disappeared beneath them.
The picture of feigned innocence. If innocence had just been caught yanking her sister around by the hair for seemingly no reason.
Robby checked Rose's scalp carefully, his fingers threading through her strands and along the skin. No patches of hair loss. No bleeding, and no bruising. Thankfully.
She'd be just fine.
...But as for Maddy.
"Maddy, why did you do that to Rose?" Maddy's face scrunched up even tighter as her chubby little arms wrapped up around her body, she turned away from Robby as she tried to sink further into the couch.
Rose sniffled in his arms as he continued to rub soothing circles along her clothed back, rubbing her flower pajama sleeves along her nose.
His voice came through more sternly the second time.
"Madeline Camille... why did you hurt your sister?"
He tried not to raise his voice often. They were only five after all—and sibling spats, if Dennis' stories from growing up were of any indication, could often get a little violent from time to time. But all the same Robby needed to know, he'd really rather they worked this out before bed tonight.
The use of her first and middle name mixed with Robby's 'upset dad' tone seemed to do the trick, making Maddy's own bottom lip tremble. And as she pressed the heels of her palms into her baby blue eyes, she sniffled.
"I want Momma..." and just like that, the sound of his daughter crying out softly for Dennis made Robby's heart sink to the floor.
Because it hadn't been Robby's intention to have both of his girls crying. Manipulative or not it never felt good to make your babies cry.
He sighed quietly, holding onto a much calmer Rose as he knelt down to the ground. He tried to let Rose down and unlatched her small but strong hands from around his neck with some difficulty, and with a deep breath he set her down on the ground next to her.
When he looked up at Maddy, still sat on the couch—rubbing her eyes and hiccuping her small sobs—he reached out to pet at her arm.
"Maddy, I'm sorry I had to use that tone with you... but you can't hurt your sister like that," he said sternly. Robby paused for a moment as he tried to figure out what to say next.
Next to him, Rose had already seemingly gotten over the pain and is now getting up to dance with the pop stars on the screen.
Swaying and jumping with all the horrible rhythm of a five year old. He rubbed a thumb against the exposed skin of Maddy's arm and against her puppy pajamas as he continues. "What made you want to pull her hair?"
Maddy reached behind her dramatically and produced a doll. "She broked Rumi."
Robby stared at it for a second in confusion. The fancily dressed doll's purple head lolled at an angle that would've been deeply concerning on a person and merely unfortunate on a toy.
Then he looked at Rose. Then back at the doll again. Ah. Well. That certainly explained a few things.
"So she broke your doll?" Robby asked carefully.
Maddy thrust the doll toward him as if presenting evidence to a judge in court.
"She broked her head off."
Rose, meanwhile, had already wandered halfway back toward the television and was pretending none of this involved her.
A sure sign that it absolutely involved her.
Robby looked over at Rose again—who was partially picking her nose by the television. "Is that true, Rose? Did you break her Rumi doll?"
Rose shook her dark curls and turned with a mischievous smile "Nope." She proclaimed as her arms fixed to her side, her little body swaying back and forth.
"She broked her! Rose broked her head off, she's a meanie and I hate her!" Maddy's anger seemed to have hit a boiling point as she pointed her headless doll at her twin, nearly hitting her sister as she threw it in Rose's direction.
Robby adjusted himself, pushing up from his popping knees with a quiet grunt. He reached down to collect the abandoned doll from the carpet before one of the girls accidentally stepped on it.
"Maddy, we don't throw things. If you throw things you lose them. And we don't use that word, hate is a very strong word, sweetie." He turned the doll over in his hands, examining the damaged neck joint. " I know she broke your toy and that's not okay, but saying you hate someone isn't okay either."
Maddy's lower lip stuck out immediately as her arms crossed against her chest again.
"But she did it on purpose."
Across the room Rose suddenly found the television fascinating again, turning her whole body toward it as if she hadn't been in the conversation at all.
"Rose," Robby said. The little girl froze as she slowly and dramatically turned back around.
"You broke your sister's toy and you need to apologize."
Rose shuffled her socked feet against the carpet, her dark brown eyes never once leaving the floor.
"I wanted to play with it."
"So you broke it?"
"She wouldn't share with me."
Robby walked toward the kitchen, gesturing for both girls to follow. Maddy immediately trailed after him while gripping tight at her own roots. Rose lagged behind, still dragging her feet in protest.
"Honey, that's Maddy's toy—not yours." Robby set the doll on the counter and reached for the plates he'd already prepared. "Did you ask her nicely to play with it?"
Rose nodded, her thumb resting against her lips as she began to suck on it.
"And what did she say?"
The answer came out immediately behind her thumb. "She said no."
"Well, then that's your answer."
Rose frowned so hard her nose wrinkled, her tone becoming a whine as she held onto the kitchen table and hopped in frustration. "But... I wanted it."
"I bet you did, but it's still Maddy's toy."
"I wanted it!"
Robby barely bit back a smile as he willed himself to be patient and parental. His kids always seemed to think repeating themselves enough times would somehow change reality.
"If something doesn't belong to you, you can't take it without asking. And you can't break things just because you can't have them."
Rose removed her thumb from her mouth, she crossed her arms against her chest and turned quickly away from her sister. "But that's not fair!" She said with a stomp of her foot.
"It's more than fair, now apologize to your sister. You too Maddy."
Rose and Maddy both groaned dramatically and turned towards one another, each giving a half-hearted apology. Dennis would've been proud of the effort—even if it had a bit of bite to it and no real sense of remorse.
Robby counted it as a win and slid both plates onto the edge of the counter with a smile.
"Good job, girls. Here." He tapped the doll with a few fingers. "Let Daddy keep your doll for a bit, Maddy. Maybe I can fix it while you two have your lunch. I made you both sandwiches and apples slices."
That immediately redirected Maddy's attention and her eyes widened between the doll and her plate.
"You can fix Rumi?"
"I can certainly try."
Maddy hurried forward and grabbed her pink butterfly plate. Behind her, Rose was already climbing onto her tiptoes to peek at the plates and pick at its contents.
"Daddy..." Rose asked suddenly, grabbing hers from the edge. "When is Mommy coming back home?"
Robby glanced down at her. The question was so abrupt it made him pause and shake his head with a smile as he grabbed a few paper towels for them.
"Soon, sweet pea. Momma's at work right now helping people feel better." Rose accepted that answer for all of about three seconds, grasping her own plate.
"Momma is still at the hopital?"
"Hos-spital," Maddy corrected her sister confidently, setting her plate down on the table slowly.
Rose gasped and huffed, slapping her palm against the wooden table as she placed her own purple kitty plate down.
"That's what I said!"
Robby laughed as he lifted up the doll's hair to look at the damage. "Yes, baby. Momma is at the hospital." He gestured the doll toward her for a moment, unable to hide his smirking. "And wow, that's a big word. I'm impressed, Rosie."
Rose immediately preened as she tossed her curls over one shoulder with all the confidence of a movie star, with none of the dexterity as she almost hit her plate and knocked her apples to the floor.
"I'm just bery good at talking."
"Oh, is that right?"
"Yep! Mrs. Regina says so, she wears glasses."
"Well, Mrs. Regina sounds very smart. Just like you."
Rose beamed, then she pushed herself higher onto her tiptoes, fingers gripping the edge of the seat as she lifted herself into her chair. She sat up on her knees and tried to see what Robby was doing with the doll.
Across from her, Maddy began bouncing impatiently in her own chair as she watched him work.
"Can you fix her, Daddy?"
"I'm working on it, baby."
Rose bounced too, her energy matching her twin as she grabbed an apple slice from its segmented plate pocket. She popped the slice into her mouth, speaking as she chewed. "Momma... fixes dolls at the hopital?"
Robby glanced at the both of them for a second.
One blonde head. One dark-haired head. Both staring up at him with identical curiosity at Rose's question. He couldn't help but smile.
"No, baby," he said with a soft chuckle. "Me and Momma fix people too, not just dolls..."
Robby trailed off as he applied gentle pressure beneath the doll's head, allowing for the neck to slide into place.
"Momma is a doctor and heals people, puts them back together, just... like... Daddy—there!" The neck joint clicks into the socket, he turns the doll over a few times in his hand as Maddy claps and moves energetically in her seat. "All better."
"Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, Daddy!"
Robby chuckles at her excitement and looks up to see that her sandwich isn't finished, it's barely even touched, and so are her apple slices.
He ignored his daughter's grabby hands for her doll and placed Rumi on the counter as he points to her plate. "You're welcome pumpkin. Now eat your lunch, or else no more K-pop movie or playing with your doll... or leaving the table until you both finish at least half."
Maddy whined but does as she's told, making all sorts of frustrated noises as she grabs her food and bites into her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Rose follows suit happily as she munches on a few more bites of her apple, after asking her Daddy for more peanut butter for them—to which he gladly concedes.
Getting her to eat this week has been an enormous pain, he was just thankful she was eating.
And as he loosens the jar to scoop a small spoonful of peanut butter into two bowls, because he knows Maddy will ask for one just like her sister, he pulls up his phone.
He snaps a quick photo of their girls, messy and uncoordinated in their eating. Rose looking up just in time to smile with apple stuck in her teeth as Maddy picked at a jammy stain on her pajamas. Robby couldn't help but laugh as he set their bowls down on the table in front of them and sent it off to Dennis, attached to a message:
'Lunchtime. love you lots'
And to his surprise, the heart reaction and message back from his husband was seen almost immediate:
'My sweet girls!!! Thank god Rose is eating. Thank you for giving them fruit baby. Love all three of you! <3'
"Daddy...?" Maddy calls out to him, making Robby look up from his phone and towards her voice. Her face is absolutely coated in peanut butter now, the front of her top stained with jelly.
He rolls his eyes and grabs a few wet wipes from the pouch they keep on the counter as he walks towards the table. With a smile he pulls out a chair, sits and holds onto her chin as he starts gently wiping her face.
"Yeah, pumpkin?"
She struggles to talk as he wipes at her lips and cheek.
"Does—does your Mommy work at the... hos-spital... like our Mommy does?"
The question makes him pause as it registers in his mind, and almost makes him reel back. His wipe covered thumb stops its gentle circles near her mouth, his other hand still tilting up her small chin.
Maddy watches him as his face filters through a few emotions, her eyes bright as crystal and sparkling with intrigue.
Completely unaware of the verbal bullet she'd just shot him with.
He swallowed down the tangled and twisted feeling that crawled up his throat, turning the wipe over in his hand to fold it, continuing to clean up around her mouth.
"Uh, no baby. My Mommy... doesn't work at our hospital."
"Oh." Maddy's lips pursed into a thinking frown as one of her sticky hands lifted up to tangle into her golden hair, Robby caught the hand softly before she could decorate her hair in food and began to wipe at her fingers.
"Where does your Mommy work?" She asked sweetly as he wiped between her knuckles.
Robby hesitated again, once again trying not to recoil at her very innocent question.
"I... I don't know, Maddy."
"You don't?" Robby shook his head as he finished cleaning her fingers. Maddy continued. "...Why?"
Why.
His thumb paused against the wipe in his hand.
It was ridiculous, really, how shellshocked he felt. He could navigate parenthood with enough grace, was getting pretty damn good at it after five years.
He had survived therapy, debatably.
He could sit through difficult conversations about grief and trauma with patients and, honestly, felt like he'd started to really sort through all the baggage he'd dragged into adulthood.
But one curious question from a well meaning five-year-old about his still healing wound... could still leave him completely unprepared. Especially when it came to answering their brutally honest questions, their need for answers about a world they're just too young to comprehend.
'Old people sometimes don't like to talk about things from their past,' Dennis had said one night weeks ago—scooping up Rose from his clearly overstimulated husband's lap. Saving a very tired Robby from another round of grueling questioning from their daughter. Dennis had smirked and kissed her cheek dramatically, nosing near her neck and making her giggle. 'Daddy, like a lot of people, has some things he doesn't like to talk about.'
Once her fingers were clean, he blinked a few times and looked away from Maddy for a moment. Across the table Rose was chewing her sandwich while staring at the television with complete focus. The animated girls on screen were singing about friendship while fighting demons, writing a song together.
A sentence that somehow made sense in the context of the movie. Her curls bounced every time she kicked her feet against the chair bars to the beat.
Maddy waited patiently, or as patiently as a five-year-old could, before prodding him again.
"Daddy?"
Robby blinked again at her hand in confusion as she tugged at his arm. He folded the wipe once more, then again as if he was trying to buy himself another second to think, then he looked back up at his daughter.
"Well, because... I never knew my Mommy."
Rose looked back from the movie at his words, her sandwich falling from her hands as her arm hit the table edge. "Uh-oh!" She announced as it splatted half onto the plate, half onto the table. "Sorry, Daddy."
Robby reached across the table, putting her sandwich back onto her plate and taking a mental note to get her cleaned up next. "It's okay, sweet pea. I'll help you clean up," he hands her a clean wipe from the small bundle he grabbed with a smile "Or you can be a big girl and show me how big girls clean up their messes."
Rose's eyes light up as she grabs the wipe eagerly, moving her plate with very little effort and rubbing the peanut butter into the table in one long messy smear.
They'd have more to clean up after all, it seems. He sighs and turns back to Maddy, who is still looking confused.
"You never knewed your mommy?" She asks. Robby nods and frowns as he pushes a few blonde strands behind her ears, trying to finish his earlier task of wiping her face clean.
"Why?" She asks again.
He'd also often asked himself that question when he was younger.
Stayed up late into the night asking himself that question well into his adult life, bothered his grandparents as a young boy with different variations of the question until they eventually ran out of answers that would placate him.
The answer always evolving as he grew older, but never really changing.
'She couldn't take care of a child, even if she wanted to.'
'She's in a bad way. This was for the best.'
'We don't know sweetheart, she's been dealing with a lot of pain for a long time.'
Everything he knew about his mother he'd gained from bits and pieces as he'd grown up. Creating a bitter picture of the truth.
Voicemails on their home phone answering machine from a slurring woman on his tenth birthday, telling them that she was leaving for California as people could be heard in the background, cheering and yelling from whatever bender she'd been on.
A random woman showing up one rainy day when he was seven, standing on his grandparent's porch and scratching at bloody scabs on her arms. Begging his grandmother for money and a place to stay for a while, 'away from the kid.'
His grandfather holding his grandmother at the kitchen table, crying with her as she held onto a picture of a young girl—no more than ten or eleven years old.
He knew she'd struggled with her own life and her own demons for a long time, maybe she regretted having him... maybe she didn't. He never got to ask her, in the end. Leaving him alone... with all his assumptions.
"My Mommy didn't want me," he eventually settled on with an unsteady tone. "she gave me away... she gave me to someone who would love and take care of me."
The words felt strange leaving his mouth. Not because they weren't true, but because the truth was more complicated than he could explain.
Because they were the sort of truth even adults spent years learning how to understand. Yet here he was trying to shrink it down into something small enough for two five-year-olds to understand.
Maddy's brow furrowed. Her sandwich and apples forgotten on her plate, all while she stared at him with the fierce concentration only children seemed capable of. Trying to fit his answer into her understanding of the world.
"Awwww, that's sad." Rose chimed in, looking up at Robby from her smeared lunch with a deep frown of her own, Robby nodded again and pulled his lower lip between his teeth. Trying not to show how deeply he was hurt as he spoke.
"Yeah. It is, sweet pea."
There was another pause as Maddy tried to figure out exactly how that could be, someone not wanting her father. Her little brain working over the information hard. Then, in a move that surprised him initially, she got down from her chair.
Then she moved the chair closer by the legs, puffing as she did and stubbornly refusing any help before climbing back up onto it. And as she sat, looking almost eye to eye with her father as she grabbed his hand.
Her tiny fingers grasping at his thumb, almost wrapping around it completely as she spoke.
"But... I want you Daddy."
From behind them Rose got down from her own chair, not one to be outdone in her own affections, gripping tight to Robby's clothed leg and tugging on it as she too declared her wants.
"Me too. I want you too, Daddy."
Oh.
"Girls," his heart felt like it was going to burst. His chest so full he could hardly breathe.
Parenthood had been a troubling path for Robby, a long and painful journey full of hardship for him and his husband.
They'd suffered together, hurt together—but they'd grown too, they'd learned. From eachother and from their twins. But all the pain and frustration and uncertainty, all of it was worth it. For this.
To have the cycle broken, his heart filled by unquestionable and unyielding pure love. He couldn't help but sniffle a little bit as he gestured toward himself, speaking softly and trying not to choke on his words.
"Come here and give me a big hug you two, that's so sweet, I love you both so much."
He corralled his twins, feeling their arms wrap tight around his neck as he kissed against each of their sugary coated cheeks. Squeezing them each so tightly as if he were afraid they'd disappear in his grasp.
Rose pinched her cheek and neck together as Robby continued kissing at her cheek, squirming and wriggling in his arms. Trying in vain to get away as she shrieked and dissolved into a laughing fit.
"That tickles, Daddy!"
Robby chuckled and planted another sweet and quick kiss to her cheek and to Maddy's nose, making her squirm as well. "Sorry, babies. Daddy will shave tonight, promise."
Rose nods as her still messy fingers tangle into his beard. But before long she's looking back towards the movie again, the sweet moment seemingly gone from her mind as she releases her grasp and Maddy follows suit, both of them transfixed on the final scene of the movie. Their favorite part coming up.
Robby loosened his grip on them in preparation for their eventual sprint into the living room.
"Alright, finish up your movie while I get your lunch put away for later. When it's over you both gotta get cleaned up before Momma gets home."
A chorus of whines erupts around him as his twins begin complaining about impending bath time.
But he had a trick up his sleeve just for this. "No buts, you're both messy... besides," Robby stands from his chair slowly, grabbing the soiled wipes and trying to wipe the residue from Rose's 'cleaning' off the table "Momma will be home around five, if you want us to watch the movie with you again tonight and have sweet treats... you gotta be clean first."
They both seem to look at one another, then to the movie and the couch, weighing their options. And as if speaking to one another telepathically they nod at each other and then to him. Maddy speaks first.
"Okay! But... after movie."
Robby ruffled her blonde hair and headed toward the kitchen. "Of course, pumpkin, movie first. But then straight to bathtime."
And before he'd even started to pick up the plates the two of them are jumping out of their chairs and darting off into the living room.
Maddy barely remembered to grab her Rumi doll from Robby before joining her sister in the living room, Rose already starting to act out the final musical number of the movie.
And as he cleaned up he watched them play, and sing a long and cheer for the ending they've seen hundreds of times. Watched as they mimicked the girl group on screen, pulling each other into a tight hug as the credits started to roll.
Rumi forgotten on the couch between them, the fight already long forgiven, leaving his inner child feeling more healed than it had in years.