“A neighbor reported seeing a woman arrive earlier this evening.”
That was all I got at first: a house in ruins and a husband presumed dead.
My entire life had turned into ash while I was on a business trip three states away.
I had nothing left after the fire except my grandmother’s lake house, two hours north. A week after I moved in, I got the call from social services.
The woman on the phone sounded careful.
“There are children involved.”
I sat down at my grandmother’s kitchen table. “What children?”
My entire life had turned into ash.
She paused. “The woman who was with your husband had twin boys. They’re four years old.”
“My husband’s?”
“According to their birth certificates, yes.”
“And now what?”
“They need placement. There doesn’t appear to be any family willing to take them.”
I laughed once, but there was nothing funny in it. “You’re calling me because his mistress died in the fire, and now no one wants the children he had behind my back?”
“There doesn’t appear to be any family willing to take them.”
The woman sighed softly. “I’m calling because you are their closest legal connection through him.”
I should have said no. Any sane person would have. I had just lost my home and the man I thought I knew.
Instead, I said, “I’ll come in.”
The boys were sitting in a little office the first time I saw them. They were identical enough that I could only tell them apart because one had a small scar near his eyebrow.
Both of them were thin, quiet, and watchful. They held on to each other like if one let go, the other might disappear.
I should have said no.
I crouched down in front of them.
“Hi,” I said.
They looked at me with those huge dark eyes that had already learned too much.
I glanced up at the social worker. “Do they know?”
“Only that their parents are gone.”
I looked back at the boys. One had his fist twisted in his brother’s shirt. The other was trying to look brave and failing.
And I remember this awful, clear thought rising in me: None of this is their fault.
