The letters stopped after that. Sometimes I wondered if the girls noticed. They never said.
***
I would sleep up for a few nights and run the numbers in my head, like you do when you’ve broken long enough. Not money. The other guy.
- Did I do enough?
- Did I say the right things at the right time?
- Did you know that I loved them, or did they just know I was tired?
I was wondering if the girls noticed.
There was a fear under all that I never said out loud. That somewhere in the back of their hearts, the triplets were still waiting for their real father.
That I was the man who had been there, but not the man they wanted.
I didn’t blame them for it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
There was a fear under everything.
***
The morning of the triplet graduation, I sat in my van in the parking lot for 20 minutes before I could leave.
I was 49 years old. My beard had turned gray in patches. My knee hurt from a ladder fall two summers before and it had never healed.
I had brought a cheap camera, which I didn’t fully know how to use, and I was shaking in my hand.
And in my wallet, behind the expired insurance card and a food receipt, I had saved Daniel’s original note. It was discolored, but still legible.
I brought a cheap camera.
I deployed it with both hands.
I was wondering if the girls would mention Daniel today. I was wondering, worse, if you wished him would come in his place.
