She stood there a moment, like she wanted to tell me something else. Then she walked out and got in her car.
No relatives were waiting to help. No emergency plan existed. It was just me, alone, with three babies who needed someone right then.
I turned down that job in Chicago. I started the adoption process myself.
I learned to feed one baby while rocking another to sleep, to survive on almost no rest, to make one paycheck stretch further than it should ever have to.
Twenty years passed without a single word from her. Then, this year, on my birthday, my three sisters came home unusually silent.
Nora didn’t speak through dinner. Piper’s eyes were red and swollen. Wren avoided my eyes completely.
