I remained with the triplets, not because they had demanded it, but because somebody had to.
“I’m asking if there’s room.”
***
Daniel returned the way weather sometimes does.
A birthday card one time, with no return address.
A Christmas card carrying a stamp from somewhere I’d never visited.
When the girls turned 12, he called.
“I want to reconnect, Noah. I’ve been thinking.”
“Thinking about what, exactly?” “About them and being a dad.”
I gripped the phone so tightly my hand began to cramp.
When the girls were 12, he called.
“You want to be a dad, you get on a plane. You don’t think about it on my phone bill.”
My brother never got on a plane. He never came.
After that, the cards stopped. Every now and then, I wondered whether the girls noticed. They never mentioned it.
***
Some nights, I’d lie awake doing the math in my head, the habit you develop after being broke for long enough. It wasn’t about money. It was the other kind of calculation.
