Then something happened that still makes me laugh.
Paige fell in love with a man named Dylan.
A year later, Holly met Dylan’s brother, Reese, at a family cookout.
Several months after that, Brooke began dating their youngest brother, Jonah.
Three sisters marrying three brothers sounded like something somebody would invent for a movie, but there we were.
When all three couples became engaged within the same year, my daughters decided to have one wedding.
I complained that raising triplets had apparently prepared me perfectly for paying for three brides at once.
The truth was, I couldn’t have been happier.
On the wedding day, I walked Paige down the aisle first.
Then Holly.
Then Brooke.
Each of them squeezed my hand before joining the man she had chosen.
By the time the ceremony ended, I thought the hardest chapters of our family story were already behind us.
Then, during the reception, I saw a woman sitting near the back.
Her dark hair had gone mostly gray, and her face was thinner, but I knew her immediately.
Elodie.
For one foolish moment, I wondered whether twenty years of anger had finally made me imagine her.
Then she looked directly at me.
I crossed the room before I had time to think.
“What are you doing here?”
Elodie’s eyes filled.
“Warren, please. I know I don’t have the right to ask you for anything, but there are things you don’t know.”
Twenty years of anger rose at once.
I reminded her that she’d had two decades to explain herself. She hadn’t called on birthdays, during illnesses, or even once to ask whether the three babies she’d abandoned had survived infancy.
Elodie didn’t deny any of it.
She only said, “I tried to come back once.”
Before I could demand an explanation, the microphone made a sharp sound from the stage.
Everyone turned.
My three daughters were standing together.
