They contained diapers, clothes, snacks and essentially everything for emergencies.
I had kept those ridiculous baskets long after the girls had little ones left.
Sophie apparently used to get into hers.
Grace was hiding cookies in hers.
Emma once fell asleep inside one during a move.
The woman smiled at me.
“Your brother worked to the exhaustion.”
I corrected it automatically.
“Dad.”
Silence.
The girls looked at me.
I didn’t even realize I said it.
***
We ended up in the old playground where I had spent hundreds of Sundays because free entertainment was the only guy I could reliably afford.
Emma sat next to me.
“Dad… Mom was right.”
I waited.
“You had another option,” she muttered.
“That part is true,” I admitted.
Grace whispered, “Would you like to have known?” I stopped breathing.
I looked at them at three.
“I wish she had told me.”
Sophie’s face crumbled.
“You deserved the choice.”
