The day before my 63rd birthday, I found out that my son had planned a trip and was leaving me behind to look after 18 children. I didn’t say anything at all. On my birthday itself, he called: “Mom, where are you?” I smiled: “Don’t worry … Venice is beautiful!”

I looked up from the laundry, a familiar knot forming in my stomach. “That’s wonderful, honey.

You two deserve some time together.”

“The thing is, we need someone to watch all the kids.”

All the kids. Not just his three children, Tyler, Emma, and baby Sophia. When David said all the kids, he meant the extended-family circus that somehow always landed on my doorstep.

His sister Rebecca’s four children. His cousin Mike’s twins. Jessica’s sister’s three kids, who were having problems at home.

The neighbors’ children, whose parents trusted only me. Eighteen children total, ages two to fourteen. “Your birthday is tomorrow, I know,” David said, running his hand through his perfectly styled hair.

“But the resort booking can’t be changed. You understand, right?”

My sixty-third birthday. The one I had been quietly hoping someone might remember this year.