Annie, down the street Annie, just had the most beautiful pair of twins – equally caked in fat, equally full of bubbling giggles, equally innocent in this world of promises always broken and wishes never granted. 

It’s a shame Annie is such a terrible mother. 

Anyone could see it, even if they hadn’t spent the last three years and seven months reading every parenting book, going to every fertility doctor, and spending every possible free second fucking and praying that with every rhythmic thrust that this might be the time. 

But it never was. And, meanwhile, of course, sixteen-year-old, down the street Annie, drunkenly, casually fucked a boy whose name she can no longer remember, and ended up with not one, but two baby angels. 

When Annie gets home from school, she pushes them around the cul-de-sac and I watch her from behind my curtains. It’s cold outside because it’s always cold here and Annie never wrapped her angels in a blanket to keep them warm. She pushes the stroller with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth like it’s a quiet plea for the poisonous smoke to kill her babies. Even from a distance, I can see the cold wave of regret in her eyes as she trudges down the street, youth robbed from her teenage breasts, a certain glow absent from her wrinkleless face. 

How easy it would be for me to just take one off her hands. Perhaps then, some joy might return to her cheeks. The fraternal twins would never know they shared blood – Annie and I could keep such a quaint, little secret to ourselves. And maybe when the children were two and still too young to remember, Annie would see how great mine was turning out because I was raising a child as one should: with deep, profound love instead of spite. That child would mark the beginning of my life, not the end. Maybe once I had proven myself, Annie would simply give me the other one. 

I wouldn’t protest. This brief little moment of her pushing two perfect babies down a cracked sidewalk would be blip, a faded memory, and Annie could go back to fucking strangers (who would wear condoms from now on) and I could finally, finally, stop fucking according to a color-coded schedule. Maybe then we’d both be happy. 

But Annie keeps pushing the stroller and Harry closes the curtain. 

Cameron Katz