There were many nights when I wondered whether I had failed those girls.
Had I worked too much?
Listened too little?
Said the wrong thing when they needed the right one?
Looking back now, I can trace our entire life to one ordinary October evening and a decision I made before I understood what it would cost.
The porch light outside my apartment was flickering when I came home from a double shift.
I smelled of sawdust, metal shavings, and machine oil from Finch & Nail Hardware, the small shop beneath the apartment where I lived in the fictional town of Bramblewick.
My keys were already in my hand.
On top of the bag was a note written on the back of a gas receipt.
For several seconds, my mind refused to understand what I was seeing.
I picked up the receipt first.
The handwriting tilted sharply to the right.
I recognized it immediately.
It belonged to my older brother, Callan.
I’m sorry, Reid. I can’t do this.
That was the entire message.
No telephone number.
No address.
No explanation of where he was going or whether he planned to return.
His wife, Elowen, had been laid to rest eleven days earlier.
Callan had survived less than two weeks without her.
I was twenty-seven years old, unmarried, and living in two rooms above a hardware store.
My checking account contained $346.
The kitchen table had one chair.
The futon stopped halfway whenever I tried to unfold it.
I had never changed a diaper.
One of the babies made a small hiccupping sound.
I looked down.
Two of the girls were asleep.
The smallest one was awake, staring at me with gray eyes that looked exactly like our mother’s.
“Hello,” I whispered.
She blinked.
Then the door beside mine opened.
My neighbor, Mrs. Fenwick, stepped into the hallway wearing a blue bathrobe and slippers shaped like sheep.
