I was 18 when my mother died and left me with three newborn babies. Our father had already disappeared. Eleven years later, the man who abandoned us showed up on my doorstep with an envelope — and a request so shocking I couldn’t believe it.
When my mom died, she left behind my newborn brothers — triplets.
Three tiny humans who were still learning how to breathe on their own, and suddenly, they were mine.
Now, you might be wondering where our father was during all this.
Believe me, I asked myself that every single day for a decade.
Our father was the kind of man who stayed just long enough to leave a trail of damage.
When I was a teenager, he treated me like a punchline.
He needed an audience for his ego, and because I wore black, painted my nails, and listened to music he called “garbage,” I was the easiest target.
“What are you, a goth?” he yelled one time, pointing at my black hoodie.
I didn’t say anything.
“Not a son — a shadow,” he added, guffawing like he’d just made the best joke ever.
“That’s enough, James,” Mom cut in.
“He is your son.”
He smirked. “I’m just messing with him. Relax.”
That was the pattern in our house.
He would try to tear me down, and she would build a wall around me.
Then she got pregnant.
I remember the doctor staring at the ultrasound.
“Triplets,” the doctor finally said.
Mom’s eyes widened, and the blood drained from her face. She looked at my father, but he’d turned and walked toward the door.
That was the first time he disappeared, and it soon became a pattern.
At first, he was just staying late at work. Then he was out doing “things.”
I helped Mom hold down the fort.
She never said it out loud, but the triplets scared her a little. She was happy about them, but who wouldn’t be nervous about having triplets?
Then Mom got sick.
It started with “exhaustion.”
We all wanted to believe that was all it was, but then the word changed to “complications.”
Finally, the doctor closed the door and sat down.
My mom just nodded the whole time he talked. I couldn’t understand how she could be so calm.
I felt like the floor was giving way, and she was just sitting there.
That was when my father left for good. No goodbye, he just never came home from work one day.
One night, my mom called me into her bedroom.
“Cade, he’s not coming back.”
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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