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“Grandma!” A high, joyfully voice called from the living room.
“Just a moment, sweetheart. Ask your nan if it's urgent, yeah?” Kate called back, juggling multiple things in one hand, two of which were sharp knives. Jill would kill her if she saw the way Kate was holding them.
She managed to place the knives, as well as pens, spoons and a few metallic bowls on a tray without any major or minor injuries. Quietly pleased with herself, she added two glasses of wine and then carried the tray into the living room. The sight that met her momentarily made her heart stutter rather stupidly. Oliver, a calm and polite child, obediently sat in his place in front of the newspaper-clad table and waited. Ava was attempting to climb into Jill's lap. Jill – as always – was impressively calm and only let one hand hover in the air behind Ava to catch her if anything went sideways.
It always, without fail, warmed Kate's heart how much Jill had learned in the last years. To think that at the start, she had barely known how to hold the twins let alone change nappies or entertain them and now she stayed calm in between their loud and chaotic jumping and screaming, played with them, humoured even their silliest ideas and read them bedtime stories.
The tray full of things found a free spot on the table and Kate started to place everything where it belonged. A glass of wine at her place, another in front of Jill and the knives as far away from the kids as possible. The rest got spread around and then Kate sat down.
“Ava, darling, sit down properly on Nana’s lap.” Kate said gently and easily lifted Oliver up and into her lap. The little boy comfortably settled on his grandma's thighs and immediately reached out for the pumpkin in front of him.
“What are we doing?” He asked and glanced up at Kate, dark brown eyes wide and expectant. His sister beat Kate to a reply.
“We give the pumpkin a face!” She said animatedly, reaching for a knife that Jill immediately snatched out of her reach.
“What did I say, Ava? Knives only get used after we ask and with a grown up helping.” Ava's smile faded a little bit and she nodded, hands on her lap now.
“Sorry, Nana.” The little girl mumbled apologetically and the slightly crestfallen look on her face tugged at Jill's heartstrings. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her granddaughter's head.
“It's okay, Monkey. We just don't want you to hurt yourself, okay?” Jill said and felt Ava nod against her.
“Now, we will cut the top part off and then you two can get all the seed out with the spoon, okay?” Kate explained, reaching for a knife, always conscious of her grandson sitting on her lap. “And later we can toast the seeds and you can eat them.”
Ava scrunched her little noise up in disdain and Kate abruptly remembered that Ava despised Pumpkin seeds.
“Olli can eat them and we'll get you some walnuts. How does that sound?” Jill offered and that only seemed to confirm Ava's already formed opinion, that Jill was the best person in the world. She beamed up at her Nana and snuggled into her immediately. Jill gently chuckled and Kate felt, yet again, how her heart swelled in her chest.
Before she could say something uncharacteristically sappy that would no doubt make Jill slightly uncomfortable, she reached for the second knife and started to carefully cut into the thick pumpkin flesh. Jill followed her example.
“Can I help, grandma?” Olli asked while Ava had already simply reached out and wrapped her little hand around the handle of the knife in Jill's hand.
“Of course, sweet pea. Just be really careful, okay?” Oliver nodded seriously and cautiously reached out to help. With the kids helping it did take a tad longer than it probably would have. But neither of them would ever complain about such a trivial thing when it meant seeing their happy smiles and shining eyes.
Hollowing the pumpkin out afterwards didn't take particularly long, it simply made an enormous mess. A mess neither Jill nor Kate had quite anticipated. Most of the seeds did find their way into the metallic bowls Kate had brought, but a good deal landed on the table – thankfully laid out with old newspaper – or the kids shirts and a small part did somehow fly onto the carpet. The very light, very expensive carpet. For a fraction of a second Kate had seen Jill's nerves snapping. But she had tied them back together so quickly that the kids didn't even need to try and look apologetic. They simply giggled. Cause god and the world be damned, Jill would never be mad at a kid for being exactly that: a kid.
They scraped the seeds off the carpet and let the spot soak in some water and carpet cleaner for now. Further assessments of the damage had been pushed to a later date.
After a messy while, the pumpkins were empty and ready for carving.
“I want a scary pumpkin!” Ava declared and grinned up at Jill. “With teeth!”
Oliver shifted a bit on Kate’s legs and with tiny, chubby hands pressed against Kate's chest he tilted his head up to reach her ear. Then he mumbled something quietly. Kate's heart melted quicker than a speck of Gallium in the palm of her hand.
“Oh, sweet pea. Of course we can make the pumpkin kind.” Olli's lips formed into a wide, joyful beam and he settled back into her lap. Oliver had always been a calm and gentle soul whereas his sister was a whirlwind, loud and chaotic. Where Ava enjoyed kicking balls in the garden with Jill, Oliver enjoyed reading books about Dinosaurs and bugs with Kate. Where Ava danced and sung loudly to music, Oliver enjoyed drawing figures and animals with a dozen different colours. And yet, they seemed to get along splendidly and always laughed together. And they strictly refused to not share a bed. Kate and Jill had set up their spare room as a room for the twins, buying two identical beds and yet in the morning they always find them huddled under one blanket.
With a black pen in hand each of the twins started drawing a face onto the pumpkin. And it turned out Kate possessed more creative talent than Jill did. The combination of that and Oliver's general love of drawing and crafting resulted in a rather nice face, consisting of two big, round eyes, small eyebrows and a bright smile. Oliver had declared that no nose was needed because pumpkins couldn't smell anyways.
“Sound logic.” Jill had whispered, only for Kate to hear who had chuckled fondly.
The combination of Jill's lack of talent in matters of creativity and crafting and Ava's chaotic impatience resulted in a rather messy face, consisting of a crooked, wide mouth with five uneven teeth and two triangles as eyes. The right eye was higher than the left one. And two tilted down eyebrows made the pumpkin look angry. Those at least, looked symmetrical. Well, nearly symmetrical.
Ava loved it.
As soon as the faces were done, Jill and Kate got the strict order to immediately start to cut it. The only problem was that after approximately thirty seconds the twins realised that this part was unbelievably boring for them. So they simply slipped off their grandma's laps and left, leaving the grown ups to do the work.
“Oh, great. We did this for the kids and now we're the ones left with actually doing it.”
“That is generally what happens. They get bored quickly."
“Fun.”
“Oh, stop pouting, you big baby.”
Jill scowled, but kept cutting the crooked teeth Ava had drawn onto the orange shell.
They sat in silence like that for a while, both ridiculously concentrated on making the pumpkin carvings as good as they could and making the kids happy.
“I've got your pumpkin done, Monkey.” Jill called out after a while, turning around to look for the kids in the garden. Through the open door she spotted them easily. Olli had settled on the little swing Jill had set up just a few months ago and Ava was running circles around him, telling him god knows what. He didn't seem to mind though. It was a warm and sunny September day, so it wasn't too bad that they had run out without jackets. As soon as Ava heard Jill she stopped in her tracks and excitedly ran back inside. Oliver looked hopeful and slowly got off the swing to follow his sister. Inside he tugged at Kate's shirt.
“Are you done, grandma?”
“Nearly, sweet pea. Look? Would you like to help me do the last bit?” She asked gently, looking down at him. He nodded eagerly and so Kate easily lifted him up and into her lap.
With Oliver's help Kate cut the last piece off and both the pumpkins were done. And obviously the kids immediately started bickering about whose pumpkin was prettier.
“I like them both.” Jill declared which simply got ignored and Ava completely talked over her, declaring that hers was more halloweeny and therefore better. Oliver seemed a little bit sad but didn't want to argue with his sister. He never much liked conflict and fighting. Kate was just about ready to scold Ava when the little girl seemed to realise her mistake herself.
“Yours is pretty to Olli.” She said softly and smiled at him. “It's just different.” At that Oliver perked up a bit.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah! It's like you! And mine is like me!”
They both seemed content with that agreement and started to babble about where to put the pumpkins. Kate though looked at Jill and after a second caught her eyes.
“Worth it?”
“Very worth it.”
Jill leaned in for a quick kiss and thought how very nice it was that she had found this little piece of heaven in her life.
