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I have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two lips, two shoulders, two arms, two hands, two breasts, two lungs, two ovaries, two kidneys, two hips, two butt cheeks, two sets of labia, two legs, two feet, and two children. It's the number my body is most comfortable with. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I developed a slight heart murmur. My blood suddenly danced to a three-beat rhythm. If this had continued--who knows?--I may have ended up with three children. Now that my pulse is back to its regular tango, though, a pair of kids feels just right. Not that my heart isn't big enough to accommodate more than two small people, but two is the number my cardiac muscles seem to want. Systole, diastole. Inhale, exhale. Arin, Hannah. My ova, on the other hand, are curious. My ova would like me to have thousands of children. Each tiny luminous egg would like its chance in the sun. I admit it would be fun if I could have a magical screen and see the person each egg could potentially turn into, once matched with my husband's sperm or--hey, as long as this is make-believe--matched with Michael Jordan's sperm or Mikhail Baryshnikov's or Michael Chabon's or Benicio Del Toro's. I am not thinking of sex; I'm just thinking genetic possibility. It would be very cool to watch a film of each of my eggs growing into a zygote, an embryo, a toddler, a schoolchild, a teenager, a young adult, a full-fledged grown-up, each child unfolding like a flower in front of a time-lapse camera. I could say, "Oh, didn't Ricardo turn into a handsome young man," or "That Maya, she's a real handful, isn't she?" and then turn off the projector. I don't have a reel life, though; I have a real life, and two is all I can handle, thank you very much. I may not be honoring each of my clamoring ova the way they would like, but my husband and I have done our genetic duty nonetheless, each of us replacing ourselves on this earth. I like the fact that our family has two adults and two kids, two boys and two girls, a matched set, mixed doubles. It's a pleasing geometry, our two selves squared. Our family doesn't feel square, though. It feels much more like a circle, a number that's only divisible by pi, a number that goes on and on and on so you can't begin to fathom its end. I have always loved the yin yang image, and I guess that's what our family creates; my husband and I swirled into each other, our children at our centers, bits of us embedded in the other. I like the fact that we have enough laps, enough arms to hold everyone. (Plus, as my husband says, we are able sit on both kids if we need to; it's nice to not be outnumbered.) I always knew I would end up with two kids. I grew up in a two-kid family (with my much older half-brother and half-sister on the periphery of our lives.) Growing up, my sister and I were best friends; we still are, despite a few rocky, estranged, teenage years. I can't remember anything before the day she was born when I was four years old; my memories start with her snuggled in my lap on top of an olive green pillow from our parents' bed. Growing up, she was my other half. I was not whole without her around. We balanced each other out in countless ways; I was the introvert, she was the extrovert; I was the "good girl," she was the "rebel." We drew and continue to draw strength from one another. I see a similar dynamic in my kids, although the whole they create is not always so harmonious. The boy/girl connection seems to be a lot more complicated than the girl/girl connection, at least in our particular cases. Since I grew up in a home without boys, raising a son is a bit like raising an alien, and the sister/brother relationship is pretty alien to me, too. My sister and I were partners in imagination, creating our own universe together, our own language, our own two-person club. My kids are more like sparring partners. They do venture into the world of fantasy together, and they can get along beautifully, but--phew!--can those two fight. I wish I had a sister, Hannah sometimes tearfully tells me. I wish I had a brother, Arin sometimes rolls his eyes. Part of me feels sad that I can't give them that same-gender sibling experience. I know Hannah would be a great sister to a sister, Arin a great brother to a brother. I'm afraid it's not going to happen, though; actually, truth be told, I'm more relieved than afraid. Matt had a vasectomy after Hannah was born, a decision that made both of us very happy. Two is the right number for us. We've always known it would be. Two testicles, two ovaries. Up, down. In, out. This boy, this girl.
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