Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

May 1916

“Alright, girls,” Katherine said, poking her head into the nursery, where Eleanor was sprawled on the floor, halfway through a picture book that she was reading aloud to Miriam. “That’s going to be the last book for today, okay? It’s time for Cousin Miriam to go home.”

“Noooooooooo!” Eleanor wailed, leaping to her feet and hugging Miriam from behind. “No, Mommy, we’re havin’ fun!”

“I know, Bunny,” Katherine said, readying herself for a tantrum. “But Uncle Day and Aunt Night want Miriam home for dinner.”

Eleanor shook her head rapidly. “But she can eat dinner here!”

“Another night, maybe,” Katherine soothed. “Tonight she has to go home and eat dinner at her own apartment. Uncle Day and Aunt Night would be very sad if they had to eat dinner without her, you know.”

Eleanor stuck her lower lip out. “So would I.”

Katherine looked down at Miriam, who had raised her hands to clasp onto Eleanor’s chubby arms. “Miriam can have dinner with us another time, but tonight she has to go back to her house. We’ll ask her parents about it when I take her home, and we’ll pick a night for her to stay longer, okay?”

“Noooo,” Eleanor whined again, and Miriam’s lower lip began to quiver. “Mommy, please! Please, I want Mimi to stay tonight!”

Katherine looked at her wristwatch and wondered idly if Ellie actually did have a hissy fit every hour on the hour, or if it only felt that way. Probably it just felt that way, of course, but Katherine had never timed the intervals between Eleanor’s mood craters, so she didn’t know for sure. In fact, it was distinctly possible that Eleanor became hysterical more than once an hour. Or that one of the children did, at least. With four of them running around now, the house was never quiet for long, if it ever was at all. Four children in a starter apartment—what had they been thinking? Katherine shook herself and refocused on the matter at hand. “That is not a choice today, Eleanor. You can choose to finish reading that book to Miriam, or you can choose for Miriam to leave now. Which do you want?”

“I don’t like those choices! I want her to stay!” Eleanor stomped her foot down as she spoke and glared at her mother.  

“Eleanor Joy,” Katherine said in her sternest voice, “I’m going to ask you one more time. Do you want to finish reading Miriam the book, or do you want her to leave now?”

Eleanor opened her mouth, probably to yell again, but Miriam tugged Ellie’s sleeve and held the book out to her. Ellie sighed and patted Miriam on the shoulder. “Okay, Mimi. Do you want to finish reading the book?”

Miriam nodded, and Eleanor sat back down, pulled Miriam into her lap, and began reading once more. Katherine waited by the nursery room door for them to finish, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes when Ellie decided to resume storytime by returning to the first page of the book. Katherine wasn’t too upset, of course; she’d likely have done the same at Eleanor’s age. Ellie read slower and slower as they neared the end of the book, but finally there was no way to drag things out any further, and she closed the book with a heavy sigh.

“Okay, Mimi,” Katherine said brightly. “Ready to go home?”

Miriam threw her arms around Eleanor and clung tightly for a few seconds before standing up, nodding, and following Katherine to the front door to put on her shoes. Eleanor trailed behind sadly, dragging her feet, but, to Katherine’s relief, not protesting.

“Jack!” Katherine called. “We’re heading out now. I should be back around seven.”

“Okay!” His voice echoed from the living room-family room-dining room-office. Jack liked to joke that, by calling the room different things depending on how it was currently being used, they’d found a way to expand their apartment for free. Katherine liked to say that that was all very well, but they really did need a bigger place, especially now that they had four children, and Josie had just turned one, Jack, and they’d been talking about getting a new place since before she was born, and wasn’t he tired of having a one-year-old share their bed?

“Bye, Mimi!” Nicky, age 4 ½, scampered out of the family-and-everything-else room to wave goodbye to Miriam. It was a sweet and endearing gesture, and it would have remained so were it not for the fact that, for some reason, Nicky decided to wave goodbye while standing on one leg. Unfortunately, Nicholas' precarious balancing act ended in disaster.

Theo followed closely after Nicholas. He and Miriam were largely indifferent to each other, but he was a fan of anything that caused a commotion, such as a group hello or goodbye. Theo started to wave, too, but once he clocked that Nicholas was focused on Miriam and standing on one leg, well, the temptation was simply too great to resist.

Katherine saw the disaster before it happened and took a step forward. “Theo, no!” But by then it was too late—Theo had already shoved his brother with both hands. Nicky crashed face-first onto the hallway’s hardwood flooring, and Katherine knew even before he started screaming that there would be blood. “Jaaaaack!” She yelled, flying to Nicholas’ side. “Get the boo-boo bunny!”

Theodore, who hadn’t thought past the idea of “this would be fun,” took one look at the blood running down his brother’s chin and fled to the nursery, where he promptly locked himself in. Katherine heard the latch click and filed that problem away for later. Three-year-old Theo might think he could escape punishment by hiding in his bedroom, but thirty-three-year-old Katherine knew better. And she’d share that knowledge with Theo, too, just as soon as she patched Nicky up and took Miriam home and got dinner on the table and nursed the baby and—

Jack burst into the hallway, grimaced at the sight of Nicky’s split lip, and sprinted to the kitchen for the terrycloth rabbit they used to soothe the children’s scrapes. He held the rabbit under running water in the sink, wrapped the cloth around an ice cube, and dashed back to Nicholas, who by then had managed to sneeze blood all down the front of Katherine’s shirtwaist.

“Mommy!” Nicholas bawled, turning away from Jack’s outstretched hand.

Katherine nodded her thanks to Jack, took the bunny, and began to dab at Nicky’s face, making sympathetic noises all the while.

Jack looked over at Miriam, who was standing quietly and patiently by the front door, her dress unwrinkled, her big orange hairbow still pinned perfectly in place on the side of her head. “Oh, Mimi,” Jack sighed. “I’m sorry about this, honey. We’ll get you home in a minute, I promise. Just let me get the baby settled.”

Miriam nodded and clasped her hands in front of her, looking like a Sears Catalog ad for children’s clothing.

Jack conferred quickly with Katherine, marshalled Eleanor into the family room to look after baby Josie, and strode to the front door, ready to bring Miriam back to her parents. He laced up his boots and then squatted down to meet the little girl’s eyes as he spoke. “I’m going to take you home instead of Aunt Katherine, okay?”

Miriam nodded.

“Alright,” Jack said, unlocking the door. “Do you want me to carry you, or do you want to walk?”  

Miriam held out one hand for Jack to hold. He smiled, clasped it, and held it all the way home.

“Mirele!” Davey exclaimed, lifting his daughter into his arms. “Did you have fun at Uncle Jack and Aunt Katherine’s?”

She nodded and laid her head on his shoulder, uninterested in sharing any details.

“Thank you so much for watching her today,” David said, looking over at Jack. “It was a huge help. Children are a blessing, but it’s so much easier to get things done when only one little blessing is running around instead of two.”

“Oh, I know,” Jack said wryly.

Davey laughed. “True. Well, still, Chaya managed to get some baking done today because of you, so here…” He reached back behind the door and reemerged with a loaf of still-warm bread, wrapped in a pale blue towel.

Jack’s eyes widened. “Is it—"

“Rye,” Davey finished, grinning. “Yes. We know what you like.”

“You’re the best,” Jack gushed, taking the bread. “Thank you!”

“Thank you,” Chaya called from inside the apartment. “Having only Asher today was such a gift. Miriam has been a veritable hellion lately.”

Jack made an incredulous face. “This little angel? Are you serious?”

Davey snorted. “Angel?”

Jack blinked. “Uh, yeah. I mean, she’s pretty much the perfect kid.” He gestured towards Miriam, who hadn’t moved since Davey picked her up. “She’s quiet, well behaved, sweet, smart, and quiet. Oh, and did I mention quiet?”

Chaya’s laugh rang out into the hallway. “Miriam? Quiet?”

“I ain’t heard her say a word all day,” Jack said, “So, yeah, I’d call her quiet.”

David shook his head and patted Miriam on the back. “Well, I’m glad she behaves for you, ‘cause she certainly doesn’t for us!”

Jack shrugged. “Guess you got a Jekyll an’ Hyde kid, then,” he said, scratching his head. “Or maybe we have different ideas of what’s loud an’ what ain’t? You always did have higher standards than the rest of us, Dave.”

David rolled his eyes. “She’s not as loud as four Kelly kids in one tiny apartment—”

“Don’t bring up the size of the apartment,” Jack grumbled. “I hear too much about that already these days.”

“—but she is plenty loud on her own.”

“It’s hard ta believe it,” Jack said, huffing a laugh, “But hey, if you say so, I believe ya. They say it’s the quiet ones ya gotta watch out for, after all.” He bent in and gently laid an ink-stained finger on Miriam’s nose. “Thanks for comin’ over, Mimi. We’ll see ya soon.”

“Wave goodbye,” David said, bouncing Miriam lightly up and down. The little girl complied, and Jack winked.

“G’night, Jacobs family,” Jack said, giving a goodbye wave of his own. “Time for me to head back ta my barely controlled chaos.”

Chapter Text

“Swing, batter batter, swing!” Daniel Morris yelled, clinging to the chain-link fence that separated the spectators from the players. It was a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon, and scruffy baseball fields all across the borough were hosting the inaugural games in the Lower Manhattan Newspaper Baseball League’s 1916 season. Today Field 5 in the park closest to The World’s headquarters was hosting The Tribune’s ace team, the Deadline Enforcers, which was made up mostly of editors from the paper’s different departments, and The World’s Inky Devils, a ragtag group composed of the Pulitzer-owned paper’s cartoon staff.

Inky Devils games were a family affair for the Kellys, as Katherine always brought the entire brood along to watch Jack play. Game days meant time outside, a heap of exercise, and a good night’s sleep for the whole gang; a win-win-win, if you asked Katherine. Jack got to unleash all of his pent-up aggression, as well as the crowing, competitive impulses he had to keep bridled most of the time, and the children wore themselves out running around the grassy areas next to the field, cheering enthusiastically, and playing with a rotating cast of honorary cousins.

Today’s honorary cousins included Charlie and Rosie’s three oldest kids, Daniel, Edward, and Beatrice, who, like the Kellys, were there to watch their father. Charlie had coached this team for years, and the cartoon department hoped he’d keep coaching them for many more. Charlie might not have grown up playing baseball, but that had no impact on his ability to coach and manage a team. If anything, his years of watching rather than playing meant that he approached the game with an open mind and an eye for innovation. Thanks to Charlie’s mathematical mind, the intensity with which he studied his game notes, and the trust of his players, the Inky Devils were known across the league for being unpredictable opponents. You never knew when they were about to unleash one of Charlie’s unconventional but usually successful new plays.

Of course, Charlie’s devotion to his team meant that he was unavailable to keep an eye on Daniel, Eddie, and Bea, and, with Rosie at home caring for the newest additions to the family, one-month-old twins Charlotte Anne and Daisy Leigh, all of the Kelly and Morris child-minding duties fell fully on Katherine, and Katherine alone.

Or they would have, if Davey and Chaya hadn’t shown up (with Miriam and baby Asher in tow).

“Thank heavens you were able to make it!” Katherine rose from her seat on the wooden bleachers and hurried over to wrap first Chaya, then Davey, in a bear hug. “I had no idea how I was going to manage this on my own.” She released Davey from her arms and ushered the Jacobs family over to the spot she’d staked out on the lowest bench (easier to spring up and rescue your children when your feet were already on the ground). “Daniel hasn’t been any trouble, of course,” she gestured towards Danny, who was still pressed against the chain-link fence, yelling personalized encouragement to each player on the Inky Devils. “But I don’t have enough hands to keep Josie from eating grass, Theo from jumping off the top of the bleachers, and Bea from sitting in the muddy culvert over there.”

Davey stifled a laugh as he looked over at Josie, who had taken advantage of Katherine’s momentary absence to clamber off the bleachers and toddle towards the grass. Katherine followed his line of sight and yelped. “Josie, no!” She hefted the 1-year-old into her arms and jabbed a finger into the toddler’s mouth, sweeping out a fistful of clover leaves and other debris. “You see?” She whirled back to face David and Chaya. “Too many children! In fact, now that you’re here, we have enough children to field an entire starting lineup under the age of nine!”

“I don’t think that team would win many games,” Davey commented, bouncing his own 1-year-old, Asher, on his hip.

“Are you kidding?” Katherine plopped Josie back down on the bleachers and jogged over to grab Bea, who was getting perilously close to the strip of soggy mud and turf between Field 5 and Field 7. “They have strike zones the size of ants—they’d win on walks alone.”

“They would need Danny to pitch a few strikes at some point, though,” Chaya commented, sitting down next to Josie and brushing dirt off of the child’s chin. “Otherwise they would never get a chance to bat.”

“Is there a ten-run-rule in this hypothetical baseball league?” Davey placed Asher next to Josie and waved to Miriam as she trotted off to join Ellie, Nicky, and Eddie in a game of make-believe.

Katherine tilted her head in thought. “Hmm. Good question. There is in the Manhattan Newspaper League—how about in yours?”

“Yeah,” Davey said, placing a hand on Asher’s back to keep the baby from overbalancing. “Thankfully. I know Jewish history is all about suffering, but there’s no need for us to suffer in our recreational baseball leagues in addition to everything else.”

Katherine laughed, while Chaya smiled and rolled her eyes. “Na, Josephine?” Chaya chucked the Kellys’ youngest child under the chin. “Are you enjoying the game, zissele?”

Josephine smiled and then turned to Asher, gabbling nonsense words at him.

“Mooooooooooommy!” Ellie came pelting towards the bleachers, her curls bouncing furiously. “Mommy, Nicky hit me!”

“No, Mommy, wait!” Nicholas arrived seconds later, his chubby legs already covered in grass stains from tripping and falling in his haste to reach his mother first. “Ellie hit me!”

Katherine sighed and began to disentangle her children’s stories, quickly deciding that justice required a time-out for both of them.

Eddie and Miriam, seeing that their ringleaders were temporarily unavailable, wandered over to Daniel. Edward promptly imitated the way his older brother was clinging to the fence and started repeating Danny’s cheers a half second after he uttered them. Miriam, on the other hand, retreated. Once she was far enough away from the boys to be able to watch them without interacting, she stopped, wiped her nose on her arm, and stuck her thumb firmly into her mouth.

Suddenly Daniel froze, then released an ear-splitting scream. “Go, Uncle Jack!” He yelled, hopping up and down as Jack, who played a scrappy second base, dove sideways to block a ground ball hit sharply up the middle.

“C’mon, Cowboy!” Katherine hollered, leaping to her feet, followed quickly by Ellie and Nicky, who leapt onto the bleachers and screeched their own encouragement.

Theo, who’d been sneaking up to the top of the bleachers while Katherine was disciplining his older siblings, paused in his ascent. “Dat’s my Daddy!” He pointed at the field and waved his arms. “Dat’s him! Wight dere!”

Jack scrambled to his knees and fumbled in his glove for the ball, managing to flip it to the shortstop just in time to get the force out at second.

Davey cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “Alright, Jack! Let’s go!”

The bleacher section of Inky Devils fans (almost all family members, of course; the Jacobs family comprised 4 of the 7 spectators who weren’t immediate relatives of one cartoonist or another) erupted into claps and cheers, and Jack allowed himself a small grin and a wave as he hauled himself to his feet and jogged back into position.

“He waved!” Eleanor squealed, throwing her arms around Katherine and hugging tight. “Did you see, Mommy? He waved at me!”

“An’ me!” Nicholas objected, leaning forward so that he could see around Katherine’s legs and glare at Ellie.

“At all of us,” Katherine soothed, wrapping her arms around her oldest two children and kissing them each on the head.

“Yeah!” Theo called, resuming his climb to the top of the bleachers. “Awwa us, okay?”

Katherine whirled around, her eyes widening as she spotted Theo. “Theo, no!”

“Fee-o yes!” He cackled and sped up.

A mother sitting closer to Theo sprang into action, lunging sideways and snagging Theo around the waist even as Katherine hiked up her skirts and scrambled towards her incorrigible third child.

Meanwhile, down on the bottom step, Davey leapt from his seat and dashed back out to the muddy culvert, scooping Bea under his arm just as she planted her little lace-up boot into the irresistibly squishy muck. Chaya giggled, keeping one arm curled around Asher and Josie as she watched her husband haul a wriggly Bea back to the grass in front of the bleachers.

David had just barely resumed watching the game when Chaya gasped. “Dovid—get Eddie!”

His stomach lurched as he looked over to see that Eddie had climbed halfway up the chain-link fence and somehow gotten his arm stuck through one of the links. Danny was tugging on Eddie’s waist, trying to yank him out, but so far all he’d managed to do was detach his brother's feet from the fencing. As for Eddie, well, so far he'd managed not to cry, but, based on Eddie's soft whimpers, that wouldn't last much longer. The kindergartner was trying to support his weight on the one hand he still had clutching the fence, but there was still an uncomfortable amount of pressure placed on his stuck arm, which was turning bright red.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Davey said, grabbing Edward around the waist and bending to help the boy find his footing on the fence once more. “You’re okay there, Eddie. Let me help get your arm out, alright?”

“Yes, please,” Eddie sniffled. “I’m glad you’re here, Uncle Davey.”

“Me, too,” David said, pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket and tying it around the bottom of the fence link that was cutting into Edward’s forearm. “This might hurt a little, but you just keep being brave, okay?”

Edward nodded. “I just wanted ta wave ta my Daddy, Uncle Davey. I didn’t mean to get stuck.”

“I know, buddy,” Davey said, starting the delicate process of extracting Eddie without scraping his skin too badly. “Accidents happen.”

Back on the bleachers, Katherine had corralled Theo, Chaya had pulled a couple of teething toys from the surprisingly deep pockets in her dress and plonked the babies and Bea onto a picnic blanket she’d brought along, and Ellie and Nicholas had made peace and started entertaining each other by pulling silly faces.

Katherine pressed a hand to her forehead and looked over at Chaya. “Good gracious. We are woefully outnumbered.”

Chaya smirked. “You are outnumbered. David and I are stopping at two.”

“Smart woman,” Katherine grumbled. “Although if mine were like Miriam, I could have at least ten.” She looked over at Miriam, who was still standing quietly on the grass, thumb in her mouth, observing David’s rescue mission, Daniel’s anxious hovering, and Eddie’s gradual emergence from the fence. “I’m pretty sure that she hasn’t said a word since you got here, and I am dead certain that she hasn’t caused any trouble.”

“That is because she saves it all for home,” Chaya said wryly, shaking her head. “She raises hell in private, Katherine. I promise.”

Katherine shifted Theo into her lap and shot a teasing look at Chaya. “You know what? That makes me feel so much better, I don’t even care if it’s a lie.”

Chaya gave an unladylike snort and flicked Katherine's arm. “Oh, I wish it were a lie." Katherine grinned at her friend, who leaned forward to uncurl Josie’s fist once more. Chaya brushed the blades of grass from Josie's palm, watched them sail away in the May breeze, and snagged the back of Asher's collar before he crawled out of reach. "So do our neighbors. Trust me, Katherine—our Mirele has a healthy set of lungs on her, and she uses them. Often.”

Katherine chuckled and kissed Theo on the cheek, then rapidly straightened. “Ooh, Theo-bear, look! Daddy’s up to bat!”

“Go, Daddy!” Theo yelled, waving his hands wildly.

Miriam looked over, her eyes bright and watchful, and smiled.

Chapter Text

“Well, one advantage to the second place is that it’s closer to my mother,” Katherine said, walking arm-in-arm with Jack.

Jack pursed his lips. “Yeah, but ‘s a lot farther from work.”

“Not a lot farther,” Katherine protested. “Maybe an extra ten minutes?”

“Which adds up fast,” Jack pointed out. “Especially when ya got a million kids.”

“Yes, but the kids’ school is between work and home, so really we’d be saving time.”

Jack blinked rapidly. “Wait, it is?”

“I told you that already, Jack.” Katherine tamped down the urge to roll her eyes. “Multiple times, in fact.”

Jack winced. “We's seen so many places today, Ace, I just can’t keep ‘em all straight. I’m sorry.”

Mollified, Katherine nudged Jack’s shoulder, getting him to turn his head slightly so she could kiss him on the corner of his mouth. “We did have quite a packed schedule for our day off, hmm?”

“I’ll say,” Jack huffed a laugh. “I wish we could get Dave ‘n Chaya ta pull another childcare shift f’r us, I’m that worn out.”

“If only,” Katherine agreed, sending him a commiserating look. “But would you really do that to some of your best friends?”

“Oh, in a heartbeat.” Jack raised an eyebrow at Katherine. “You tellin’ me you wouldn’t?”

She laughed, the sound adding a flash of brightness to a rainy day. “I’m not telling you anything at all, husband dearest.”

Jack grinned. Even after seventeen years together, twelve of them in wedlock, he still thrilled to hear her affirm his claim on her out loud. “That so, Mrs. Kelly? I thought married couples weren’t s’posed to keep secrets from each other.”

“Nice try, Jack,” Katherine said, her voice warm with amusement, “But I’m still not telling you what I bought you for your birthday.”

“Aww,” Jack feigned disappointment. “I’m crushed!”

Katherine steered Jack to the edge of the sidewalk, pulling him to a stop just in front of a grocery store, where they wouldn’t get in the way of any other pedestrians.

He blinked. “Whatcha doing?”

“Kissing you,” she said, smiling, stretching upwards to capture his lips in something that wasn’t quite chaste and, though it wasn’t quite scandalous, either, it was certainly above and beyond what Jack expected from his 34-year-old wife in the middle of the afternoon on a busy Manhattan street. She brought a hand up to his cheek, he smoothed her hair back from her forehead, and they kissed and kissed until a rude comment from a passer-by caused Katherine to pull back, still smiling.

Jack looked down at her, dazed. “What was that for?”

“I was just thinking,” she said, tugging him back into the stream of Manhattanites. “Today was quite different from the first time we went apartment-hunting together, wasn’t it?”

He chuckled. “Oh, yeah. Today was way better. Blew last time outta the water.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

He unlinked their elbows and passed her the umbrella he’d been holding so that he could wrap his arm behind her and settle his hand on her waist. “‘Cause bein’ married to ya is a thousand times nicer than just pretendin’.”

“Ooh, you flirt!” She reached over to tug on one of his suspenders, and he winked.

“So,” Jack said eventually, holding open the door to the drab tenement building where the Jacobs family lived, “Should we put in an offer for that second apartment, then?”

Katherine’s eyes widened as she walked into the narrow entry hall and shook rivulets of rain from the umbrella onto the floor. “You want to buy? I thought we were planning to rent.”

He shrugged. “We’ve lived in our current place twelve years now, an’ movin’ only gets harder every time we add another kid, so, to my way of thinkin’, we’ll prob’ly be in this new apartment even longer. At least until Josie’s outta the house, I should think, an’ that’ll be, what, about two decades from now? If we's gonna be there that long, we might as well invest in the place.”

Katherine let out a low whistle that echoed up the stairwell. “When you put it that way, I..." She rubbed at the back of her neck, then turned to meet his eyes. "Two decades? That’s a long time, dear heart. You like that place enough to be there for two decades?”

“I—” He paused, then ran a hand down his face. “Hear that? That’s one of ours, for sure.”

Katherine’s eyebrows knitted, and then she caught the high-pitched wail Jack was referring to. Sighing, she nodded and started up the stairs. “It’s a good thing we brought Davey and Chaya a thank-you-and-sorry gift,” she said, turning onto the third-floor landing.

“Sounds like we shoulda brought one for ev’ryone in the building,” Jack grimaced, shaking his head as the screeching sound grew more intense the closer they got to the Jacobs’ apartment. “Any bets on which kid it is?”

“Theo,” Katherine said grimly. “You?”

“Oh, definitely Theo," Jack said, coming to stand beside Katherine. "But I’m guessin’ Nicky drove him to it.” Jack set his shoulders and lifted his fist to knock on the door, then paused. “I know kids can’t behave all the time, but I sure wish they’d behave for other people—I’m gonna hate askin’ Davey an’ Chaya for any kinda help with the kids after this.”

Katherine closed her eyes briefly. “Agreed. This truly is beyond the pale.”

Jack squeezed her hand. “Well, at least we had a nice day up to now. Exhaustin’, but nice.”

“And now we get exhausting but not nice,” Katherine deadpanned, feeling inordinately pleased at Jack’s answering snort of laughter. “Ah, well, such is life. Go on, then. Let’s rescue our friends from our children.”

Jack knocked firmly, half-hoping the Jacobs wouldn’t answer the door so that he and Katherine could throw up their hands, say they’d tried, and then steal the evening for themselves.

No such luck; a frazzled David yanked the door almost as soon as Jack's fist touched it. “Guys! Thank heavens you’re back.”

“We’re so sorry,” Katherine and Jack chorused, looking around for their wayward brood.

“We told them to behave—”

“We didn’t think they’d be this bad for you two—”

“We won’t ask you to watch them again anytime soon, we promise—”

David threw up his hands. “What? No! Your kids have been angels.”

There was a pregnant, silent pause as the last notes of the child’s ear-splitting scream ebbed away. Katherine and Jack looked at each other, then at Davey, then back at each other.

Jack spoke first. “Wait—what?”

“See for yourselves,” Davey said, pointing to the bed, where all four Kelly children plus little Asher Jacobs were quietly huddled together, their attention fixed on the picture book that Eleanor was reading aloud. “Angels.”

“But we heard—” Katherine started, and David sighed.

“Miriam,” he said, casting his eyes heavenward. “Our resident hellion.”

Both Jack and Katherine’s jaws dropped. “Miriam?!”

“We’ve been telling you this for ages,” Davey chuckled, crossing his arms. “Maybe now you’ll finally believe us. Mouse-quiet in public, banshee at home.”

“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Jack breathed.

“I don’t even see her in here,” Katherine said, bemusement in her voice. “How is she so loud when she's not even here?”

“She's got a healthy set of lungs," Davey said, perversely proud of his premature daughter's ability to yell as loudly as any Kelly.

Katherine made a face. "Not quite what I was asking."

"She's on the fire escape,” Davey explained. He gestured at the room’s single window, which, when pushed up, opened out onto the fire escape. “I closed the curtains because the other kids were watching Miriam's tantrum like it was something fit for Medda’s stage, but yeah, she’s out there. With Chaya, of course." He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. "Chaya’s been trying to calm her down for ages, but… Eh.” He shrugged. “You know how kids are.”

“We do, yeah,” Jack said, still befuddled, “But we sure didn’t think you did.”

David laughed and turned to the coatrack, searching for the Kelly children’s raincoats. “Oh, we do. Trust me.”

“We do now,” Katherine echoed, bending to pick up Josie’s rainboots and handing Theo’s pair to Jack. “My goodness.”

Jack shook his head, gaze still fixed on the curtains that hung in front of the fire escape. “Well, I never. Little Miriam Jacobs, screamin’ loud enough ta bust a grown man's eardrums.” He motioned Theo over and helped his younger son slip into his boots and raincoat. “I owe you an apology, Bear. Me an’ Mommy both. Turns out you aren't the screamer we thought ya were.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Theo said absently, too distracted by the leaf he’d found in his pocket to care about anything his father said.

Davey arched an eyebrow. “No pity for my plight, Jack? Just relieved it wasn’t yours?”

Jack exhaled heavily. “You got no idea, Da—” he broke off, laughed, and nodded. “Yeah. Relieved. You know how it is.”

David winked, then winced as Miriam started up another piercing wail. “Yep. I do.”