Rain slammed into the windows like a battering ram, and Eden Roth gave a sigh as she rolled onto her side. She could see the lightning flashing through the gaps between the slatted blinds over her window, and the shadows of the water rippling over the glass cast odd dark patterns across her bed, which stood flush against the opposite wall. Thunder shook the walls around her, and more out of habit that curiosity, she counted the seconds between flashes and booms. One, two, thr- BOOM.

"Umma!"

With a soft sigh, Eden sat up and pushed her blanket aside. She had come to expect this when the weather turned bad. Her feet touched the heated floor lightly, barely making a sound, and her fingers found the doorknob with practiced ease. She walked down the short hall to where the sounds of rustling bed clothes told of two restless sleepers. As she opened the door, she reflected that being a single working mother of twin girls was probably one of the hardest things she'd ever undertaken.

The two beds stood on opposite sides of the room with space to play between them. Two little figures sat huddled on one, clutching each other. Lightning-lit, the room looked cold and unwelcoming. The two girls scrambled through the purple-blue strobing light and clung to their mother's legs with soft whimpers. Eden knelt and hugged them.

"The thunder won't hurt you, girls," she said in gentle Korean, as she did with every storm, but even as she spoke, she was rising with one girl on each hip.

"Can we sleep with you, Umma?" asked one, clinging to her neck while her sister clutched her pajama top.

"Of course you can." Eden paused just long enough to snag two well-loved stuffed toys from the rumpled beds. One was a blue and black panda with a wide green ribbon around its neck and a little green leaf-shaped cloth tag with "Hanji" written on it in Hangul. The other was purple and brown turtle with chipped glass eyes the size of ping-pong-balls. "Heemin" was written on the bubble shape hanging from one plump little foot.

"Will you be home late tomorrow, Umma?" asked Hanji when her mother set her and her sister on the bed. She snagged onto her panda and curled up in the corner formed by Eden's pillows and the wall behind her bed. The dry wall was cool through her pajamas. She looked up with wide eyes while Heemin cuddled up close to her, her turtle's foot clutched in her hand.

Eden sat on the edge of the bed and covered the pair with the sheet. "I shouldn't be very late," she answered with the usual apologetic look she gave them when they would have to stay with their babysitter a little longer than they liked. "I need to work with an actor to get his lines to sound natural. I'm not sure how long I'll be there."

"Who are you teaching tomorrow, Umma?" Heemin asked, almost asleep.

"Never you mind, Turtle," she said. "Go to sleep."

With her children sandwiched between her and the wall, Eden lay her head on her arm and watched the rain shadows streak ominously through the lightning. It continued to flash and boom long after she fell asleep.