Free Dog Stays in the Picture by Susan; Morse Page A

and this thing never gets submitted oh no. …
    Twelve minutes to midnight—crap! I crawl to the intercom and summon David to come help me, which is highly unusual. He has never laid eyes on a Common Application in his life and really has no idea what is going on. I just need him to check my typing to see if I have made any mistakes or changed Sam’s writing in any way.
    â€”He’s used “really” twice in one paragraph.
    â€”That’s okay, David.
    â€”Are you sure?
    David hasn’t had a chance to wrap his mind around all the nuances of college-application etiquette. He’s right, of course, but Sam must express himself in his own way, leaving blemishes.
    â€”David, the priority is authenticity.
    I’m trying to explain this strategy from under the desk, next to Lilly, both of us curled up in balls together. (She’s so close!) So it doesn’t seem I’m being taken seriously, and, oh well, we get rid of Sam’s extra “really” agree not to touch one hair on Sam’s short essay’s head. Save .
    Now for the long essay. It’s kind of comforting to birth this final application alone here, with my husband. Just the two of us.
    And Lilly.
    The twins were born sixteen minutes apart. With multiples, an interval longer than twenty minutes traditionally warrants an emergency C-section for the second birth, so we were cutting it close. Sam, the second to arrive, became tangled in the umbilical cord on his way out. The hot-dog doc had to literally unravel our youngest, boldly pulling Sam into life like a magician extricating the last gasping, freaked-out rabbit who’s been accidentally suffocating in the top hat.
    David laid our first boy on my chest: Ben was utterly calm, looking up at me. I was oblivious to everything else, exhausted, naturally, luxuriating in my first intimate moment with this fine-looking new specimen we’d been given, and trusting David would look after Sam. As predicted, the second delivery was not painful for me. But while we were waiting for Sam’s arrival it began to dawn on David that something was amiss. Nobody said anything, but an extra, unfamiliar doctor had materialized next to the hot-dog doc, all eyes sober-looking and intent over surgical masks.
    We’d asked Eliza’s pediatrician, Jay, to be with us for the occasion, almost for comfort, like a touchstone. Jay quickly went over to David and began to whisper soothingly in his ear.
    It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
    The boys had been lined up perfectly when my contractions started the night before, but somehow when Ben was working his way out past his brother, part of Sam’s umbilical cord got tangled, wrapping him tightly in an extremely awkward, potentially lethal position, delaying his entrance long past the preferred time gap. Everything did turn out okay. But the hot dog was visibly shaken, and for Sam’s father there was an excruciating interval of fear that our youngest might be broken .
    All the short answers are installed and proofread and we’re in the home stretch: uploading the long essay. Sam ended up bagging his My Philosophy idea, we discover, opting instead for a topic from Ivy U’s list of suggestions: a class or intellectual experience that has inspired you. David hasn’t had a chance to read it yet. Sam’s written about a class taught by his favorite, most inspiring English teacher, keeping him anonymous. This teacher was fired late last year, and Sam, who has a strong tendency to stick up for underdogs, wants to protect him in case someone reads about the man’s unorthodox, life-changing teaching style and decides not to hire him. Judging by my quick skim earlier this evening, it’s a very appreciative, thoughtful essay and David wants to see.
    It’s 11:55 now. I’m so nervous that we’re going to have something go wrong at midnight again but my husband, the father of our boys, has a