By the end of the pregnancy, Elodie complained constantly about swollen feet and never being able to sleep, but she also talked about her daughters as though they had already become the center of her life.
That was why nothing prepared me for the hospital call.
Elodie was scheduled to deliver on a Monday.
I texted that morning.
No reply.
By noon, I had called twice. Curtis wasn’t answering either, but I told myself labor was chaotic and they had more important things to think about than me.
At 5:17 the following morning, my phone rang.
A nurse from St. Joseph’s asked whether I was Warren.
“She listed you as her emergency contact,” the woman explained. “Your sister discharged herself several hours ago.”
I sat upright.
I thought something had happened to Elodie.
Then I asked about the babies.
The nurse hesitated before telling me all three were still at the hospital.
I don’t remember much about the drive.
What I remember clearly is walking into a private room and seeing three bassinets lined beside one another.
Next to them sat Elodie’s purse.
Underneath it was a folded piece of paper.
Her note was short.
She wrote that three babies were more than she could handle, that Curtis agreed they deserved another kind of life, and that they were leaving town together.
The last line said I could do whatever I thought was best.
I read it over and over, hoping exhaustion had somehow changed the meaning.
It hadn’t.
One of the babies began crying.
A nurse lifted her and asked if I wanted to hold her.
“I don’t know how.”
She placed the baby against my chest anyway.
The little girl opened one fist and wrapped her fingers around mine.
I looked at the other two sleeping nearby, and somewhere between fear and disbelief, I understood that walking away wasn’t an option I could live with.
The girls already had names on their hospital records: Paige, Holly, and Brooke.
