She didn't really know how to sew, but it was on sale for a really good price, so she bought it anyway. Eric, her husband, was pleased; he had images of personally-made, tailored outfits being churned out by the dozen. Because she desperately wanted to bring the machine home with her, she didn't disabuse him of the notion, though they walked out of the store with only remnants of cloth, along with thread, pins, scissors, and the machine itself.

"I'll practice on these scraps," she told him, "because I haven't really sewn anything since junior high."

She couldn't put her finger on why the sewing machine was so important. It wasn't as if she had gone into the shop that day with the purpose of buying one; she had been on a mission to find a dress pattern for her best friend's wedding. When she couldn't find anything that appealed to her, she decided to take a quick pass through the store before leaving; she'd been feeling depressed about her inability to do anything with her hands. It was one thing, she decided, to be able to spin songs, symphonies, and melodies out of thin air; it was another thing altogether, and a most intriguing thing, to be able to craft an actual object. She wanted to make something tangible.

She noticed the sale tag before she saw the actual sewing machine. "As Advertised!" it read. The price, nearly eighty dollars off of the regular price, made her take a second look. The machine was white and perky-looking, if a machine can be said to have such human characteristics. It reminded her of her days in home economics class, when she made gym bags and stuffed animals. Real things - gifts for others. She felt the stirrings of lust; she wanted to sew.

And then she was walking out of the shop with a bagful of sewing notions, and Eric was carrying the sewing machine back to the car.

It was no use. Eric was busily downloading a new operating system for the newest member of his ever-expanding collection of computers, and the phone connection would be unavailable for hours.

"You want to give this a shot?" she asked Eric, knowing he would probably say no. His affirmative answer came as a small shock, as did his success with the bobbin on his second attempt. She swallowed her pride and sat back down to begin sewing. She was only slightly mollified when she was able to sew straight lines of stitches as easily as she remembered. The machine was much nicer than the ones she recalled from her youth, and she forgot her bobbin problems as she sewed zigzags and "heart-beat" patterns.

Maybe I'll buy some small, easy patterns, she thought. Stuffed animals or some such. She thought she could probably make some nice things at this point. Domesticity wasn't unattainable, after all. Maybe soon she'd develop the ability to keep clutter away, and the will power to make beds in the morning. Anything was possible, right?

She heard a shriek behind her. Turning, she saw the familiar sight of a four-seat stroller, bearing the library's favorite little patrons. "Hi!" yelled the quadruplets in unison. Their nanny unbuckled them, one by one, and their two year old legs raced for all corners of the library. Puzzles were dumped, books were taken from shelves, and blocks were poured all over the floor.

She found herself sitting in a chair with one of the boys on her lap, "reading" book after book to him; he pointed to each object on the page and asked "Whazza?" and she identified it. It was their usual pattern, and he was beginning to be able to identify some objects on his own when she would ask, "What do you think it is?" The quads' speech had come quite a long way since she had first seen them several months ago. Only the smallest girl was reluctant to speak, communicating mainly through pointing and grunting; they were all very social, though, and raced to greet each person who came into "their" room.

She stood by the large window, watching them play. The youngest girl had cornered her there for a while with an actual encyclopedia of animals, and she had been quite humbled by her inability to correctly identify most of the pictures. Eventually, the child had run off to do more puzzles, and the window seemed a quiet place to stand and reflect.

One of the volunteer pages had come by then, and asked her, "Are those quadruplets?" When she nodded, the page went on, "Can you imagine? I'd just die!"

"I think it would be hard, but nice. When I was younger, I told my mother once that I believed that I was the kind of person who could have triplets and have fun doing it."

The page was incredulous; she smiled, winked, and walked away. There was no use explaining that a life as a mother was always her dream. She had craved a houseful of children - seven or more - since she was no more than a child herself. Now that she was older and "wiser," she knew that such a large family was probably not in her future, but is was still nice, at times, to think about how life could have been. Poor on luxuries, certainly, and constantly short on time. Rich in laughs, and full of memories.

But her husband wanted no more than two, and her desire for more wasn't large enough to warrant creating a rift between the two of them. Besides, she recognized, a larger family would require a woman much more born to domestic capabilities.