Twelve years ago today you made me a mother. I fed you and screamed in the Bertucci’s bathroom when I saw your umbilical stump.

Today when I complained that you were mucking about when I had told you to do schoolwork that you were actually printing out notes for another novel.

Twelve years ago I first laid eyes on you and I could never have imagined then what promise you held and how I could possibly look forward to being fifty, sixty — but you have made see the richest time of my life is just beginning.

Your brother agrees.