I ADOPTED MY THREE BABY SISTERS AFTER OUR MOTHER ABANDONED US — 20 years later, they handed me a letter from her I was never meant to see.
I was twenty-three when my whole life changed in one afternoon. I’d just finished college.
A job offer in Chicago was waiting for me. I came home early to share the good news.
Instead, I heard my mother screaming before I even reached the door. She was stuffing clothes into a suitcase.
Down the hall, my three baby sisters — three months old — were crying in their cribs.
“Mom, what are you doing?” She kept packing. “I already spent my whole life raising a child,” she said.
“I’m not starting over with three more.” I followed her downstairs, begging her to stop, to just give me one day.
