I was 23 when Mom walked out and left me with three baby sisters to raise. Twenty years later, my girls came to my birthday carrying a letter she’d secretly sent them at 18. They’d hidden it from me for two years. Then they told me why Mom had made sure I was never supposed to read it.
The first time one of my sisters called me Dad, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried.
I was 23 when Mom walked out and left me with three baby sisters to raise.
Emma was barely two.
I had been sitting on the living-room floor surrounded by plastic blocks, three sippy cups, and enough crushed cereal to feed a small country.
Grace was asleep against the couch.
Sophie had somehow removed one sock and hidden it somewhere I wouldn’t find until three weeks later.
Emma was barely two.
Emma climbed into my lap, shoved a wooden cow into my hand, and said, “Daddy, moo.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
She slapped the cow against my chest.
“Moo, Daddy.”
Grace woke up.
Sophie toddled over.
Within seconds, all three were yelling some variation of Dad while demanding farm-animal noises.
Within seconds, all three were yelling some variation of Dad.
I handed Emma the cow.
“One second.”
Then I walked calmly into the bathroom.
Closed the door.
Sat on the toilet lid.
And cried into both hands.
A tiny finger appeared beneath the door.
Then another.
Then a third.
“Daddy?”
