The twins were getting dressed for their double date. Actually, if you want to be accurate, it was a septenary date. I had asked a woman who is facile with flowers if she would make their boutonnieres, which I can neither arrange nor spell. She brought them, and a few spares, in cellophane bags with stick pins. The girls long ago stopped asking me for help with hair, or fashion accessories, so I had nothing to do but enjoy the preparations. I couldn't even tempt them with edibles as the evening included dinner. 

When the gentlemen and their chauffeur mother arrived in a carriage disguised as a minivan they made all the proper greetings. They even handed me, the mom, a bouquet. We chatted to fill those potentially fraught minutes of waiting for the real showstoppers to descend the stairs. 

Who did not disappoint. 

Two girls pinning carefully into the lapels of their escorts was one of those moments there aren't enough superlatives for. It isn't exactly the image that comes to mind when you first gaze into your baby's fluttering eyes. Yet here it was. My beautiful daughters, floating in the attention of suited young men who have asked to share an evening of their precious lives.

It took my breath away. 

Just like that they were off, to a party of fourteen friends all frilled and fancy. I was left at home to dream. And remember my own nights of dancing.

But then came the crash. After twenty idyllic days of jokes, and singing, catching the bus on time, and taking his meds, Benjamin suddenly exploded. As chance would have it, his therapist had made a last minute decision to stop by and helped John reel him back to earth. My heart was broken. 

But wait. My heart had quite recently been reinforced with a surfeit of joy. Surely I could withstand the loss. It turns out that I can. The next morning Benjamin woke up with a fresh lot of riddles scooped from a new book he was gifted. 

While he asked me about a camel who hid in a famous church in France I glanced at the stack of the girls' school books. There it was on top. The Agony and the Ecstasy.