Say Cheese

The doctor heard two heartbeats, and Carol Kessler believed him for seven months.

Then a March snowstorm shut York Road from the beltway to the county line. Her water broke five weeks early, while she was filling the tub. The ambulance couldn't get past the plows on Joppa Road.

Walt delivered the babies on the bedroom floor, with a 911 dispatcher named Bev talking him through it. Then the phone line went dead.

The paramedics walked up the hill at dawn. The first one through the bedroom door smiled at her.

"Morning, Mom," he said. "How many we got?"

Carol gave him a number. Then she spent five years keeping it right.

Say Cheese is the prequel to Sharing Location. It's Carol's story, from the night of the storm to her boys' fifth birthday. Long before Jen ever checked a little blue dot, there was a woman in a brick house in Towson who was very particular about what got counted.