CHLOE
Five years later…
The kitchen smells like bacon and chaos. Flour coats the marble island where Emma decided pancake batter needed "more mixing" with her tiny hands, and somewhere behind me, Jake is using a spatula as a drumstick against the cabinet doors.
"Emma Rose, hands out of the bowl," Adam says from the stove, not turning around. He's wearing yesterday's t-shirt and arguing with our four-year-old about proper pancake protocol while flipping what might be the fifteenth batch this morning.
She giggles and keeps stirring. "I'm helping, Daddy Adam."
"You're making soup."
Chris appears beside me with a carton of eggs, already cracking them into a bowl. His salt-and-pepper hair sticks up on one side, and there's a smear of something orange on his cheek that looks suspiciously like mashed potato from Jake's breakfast attempt an hour ago.
"Coffee?" he asks, pressing a mug into my hands without waiting for an answer.
Harry passes behind us carrying Jake on one hip, somehow managing to pour orange juice with his free hand while our two-year-old son babbles at him in that language only toddlers speak.
At six-seven, Harry makes the kitchen look smaller, but he moves through it like he was born here, stepping over toys and dodging Emma's flour explosions without missing a beat.
"Mama, up!" Jake reaches for me from Harry's arms, syrup already sticky on his fingers.
"You're covered in breakfast," I tell him, but I take him anyway, settling him on my hip where he belongs.
The estate Harry bought us has eight bedrooms, two pools, and enough land that Emma can run for ten minutes straight without hitting a fence. The kitchen alone could feed a restaurant, but on Sunday mornings it feels perfectly sized for the six of us and whatever chaos we're creating.
This is our tradition now. All-day breakfast on Sundays. No phones, no work calls, just pancakes and eggs and whatever fruit Chris cuts into perfect geometric shapes while the rest of us make a mess of everything else.
Emma abandons the pancake batter to tug on Adam's shirt. "Can we have chocolate chips?"
"We already put chocolate chips in three batches."
"More chocolate chips."
"More chocolate chips," Harry agrees, grinning at me over Jake's head.
I watch them move around each other in this kitchen we've claimed, stepping over toy trucks and wiping sticky fingers on dish towels, and I think about the people who would look at this scene and see something wrong.
Three men, one woman.
The world doesn't get a vote on what works. Our parents' absence feels like relief, not loss. We built this family on purpose, with intention, with love that doesn't fit anyone else's blueprint.
Jake presses his sticky hands to my cheeks, showing off a syrup-coated grin.
"Mama," he says, clear as anything.
Perfect.
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