By the time most people are pouring their first cup of coffee, my day is already halfway gone. That morning was no different. I had burned toast—again—signed permission slips I didn’t remember receiving, and somehow found Sophie’s missing shoe in the freezer.
Jason and Evan were arguing about whether a spoon counted as a weapon, and Katie was yelling about her hair like it was a national emergency. This is my life now. Loud, chaotic, exhausting—and the only thing that’s ever felt right.
I’m forty-four, and for the past seven years, I’ve been raising ten kids who don’t share my blood but somehow became my entire world. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Calla was supposed to be my wife.
Seven years ago, she was the center of everything. She had this way of holding the house together—calm where I was scattered, steady where I was overwhelmed. She could quiet a crying toddler with a song and end a fight between teenagers with just a look.
She made it all seem manageable. Then one night, she disappeared. They found her car by the river.
Driver’s door open. Purse still inside. Her coat folded neatly on the railing above the water, like she had taken it off on purpose.
Mara, the oldest, had been eleven. They found her hours later, barefoot on the side of the road, shaking so badly she could barely stand. She didn’t speak for weeks.
When she finally did, she said the same thing every time. “I don’t remember, Dad.”
The police searched for ten days. They dragged the river, questioned neighbors, followed every lead they could find.
Nothing. We buried Calla without a body. And just like that, I was left standing in the middle of a broken house with ten kids who needed someone to stay.
People told me I was out of my mind for taking them on. My own brother said loving them was one thing—but raising ten kids alone? That was something else entirely.
Maybe he was right. But walking away wasn’t an option. So I learned everything.
How to braid hair. How to cut it. How to manage ten different schedules, ten different personalities, ten different ways of falling apart.
I learned which kid needed quiet when they cried and which one needed to be held tight until the storm passed. I learned how to survive on very little sleep and even less certainty. I didn’t replace Calla.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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