“Mama.”
I blink, my son’s little voice waking me what feels way too early on a Tuesday morning. “Mama, wake up,” Alvin says again.
“Baby,” I murmur. “What time is it?”
“It’s 5 o’clock,” he says, and I groan, turning my head back into my pillow.
“Come back later, baby,” I say. “Mama’s still sleeping.”
“But mama,” a new voice says. My other son. My other demon, I think, cruel in this moment as my sleep is stripped from me. “Mama, it has snowed.”
At this, I open one eye. “Really?” I ask, curious. My two boys are there, looming over me, nodding their sleep-touseled heads excitedly. “How much?”
“Sooooo much!” Alvin shouts, spreading his arms wide, as if to encompass all the snow in the universe.
“Buckets and buckets of snow!” Ian says, laughing and jumping to his feet, bouncing on my be
