I lost my wife the day our triplets were born—ten years later, we found a box on our porch labeled, “To my beautiful daughters. Love, Mom.”

than the rest of us.

I learned to tell the girls apart by the shapes of their cries.

People told me Cleo would want me to be strong.

I hated that sentence.

Cleo would have wanted to be there.

Still, years passed because children make years pass.

Teeth came in.

First steps happened.

Cleo would have wanted to be there.

Kindergarten swallowed them in matching continue reading …