Fifteen years ago, my brother, Edwin, stood at his wife’s grave… and then vanished before the flowers had even settled. There was no warning or goodbye from him.
Without any explanation, he left three little girls orphaned. The next thing I knew, they showed up at my door with a social worker and one overstuffed suitcase between them.
There was no warning.
***
When they came to live with me, they were three, five, and eight.
I remember how quiet the house felt that first night. The kind that sits heavily in your chest.
The youngest, Dora, kept asking, “When is Mommy coming home?” Jenny, the oldest, didn’t cry after the first week. She just stopped talking about it altogether, as if she’d made a decision the rest of us hadn’t.
The middle one, Lyra, refused to unpack her clothes for months. She said she didn’t want to “get too comfortable.”
“When is Mommy coming home?”
***
I told myself Edwin would return. He had to.
Or that something must’ve happened, because no one just walks away from their kids after losing their wife suddenly in a car accident. It didn’t make sense.
So I waited.
But weeks passed, then months, which turned into years.
Still, there were no calls, letters, or anything from Edwin.
