Finally he cleared his throat.
“Triplets.”
Cade remembered the way his mother’s eyes widened. The way the color drained from her face. The way she instinctively turned toward her husband.
But James had already turned and was walking toward the door.
That was the first time he disappeared.
At first, the excuses were simple.
Late nights at work. Errands. “Things to handle.”
Then the absences grew longer.
Cade helped his mother hold the house together. She tried not to show it, but the idea of raising triplets terrified her.
She was happy. But she was scared too.
Then she got sick.
At first the doctors called it exhaustion.
Then they started using the word complications.
Eventually the doctor closed the exam room door and sat down before speaking.
Cade remembered feeling like the ground had dropped out from under him.
His mother just listened quietly, nodding.
As if she already knew.
Not long after that appointment, their father disappeared for good.
No argument.
No explanation.
One day he simply never came home.
One evening, his mother called Cade into her bedroom.
Her voice was gentle but worn.
“Cade… he’s not coming back.”
Cade waited for anger to rise inside him. Or grief. Or something loud enough to match the moment.
But instead he felt… empty.
The triplets arrived early.
They were so small they looked unreal, lying inside incubators in the NICU. Wires everywhere. Machines breathing for them.
Their mother stood beside those incubators for hours every day.
Watching them.
Memorizing them.
Their father never came to the hospital.
He never called.
Never asked how they were doing.
A year later, Cade buried his mother.
The funeral was quiet. Smaller than it should have been.
Cade kept glancing at the back doors of the chapel, half expecting his father to appear at the last moment.
