He never did.
That same week, social services came to the house.
“You’re not obligated to take care of them,” one of the workers told him carefully.
“You’re only eighteen. You still have your whole life ahead of you.”
Cade looked past them into the spare bedroom.
Three cribs stood in a row.
Three sleeping babies.
“But I can,” he said.
The workers exchanged a glance.
Finally one of them nodded.
“Okay. Then we’ll do this together.”
Cade grew up overnight.
Not in the heroic way movies like to portray.
There was no triumphant montage.
Just exhaustion.
Night feedings. Low-wage jobs during the day. Online classes on his phone while holding a bottle with one arm.
There was one night he still remembers clearly.
Three in the morning.
One of the babies screaming.
Cade sitting on the kitchen floor, too tired to remember if he had eaten that day.
He leaned down and whispered into the child’s tiny hair.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The baby eventually fell asleep anyway.
The boys trusted him.
Even when he didn’t trust himself.
And every day, Cade chose them again.
Eleven years passed like that.
Soccer practices. Flu shots. School projects. Saving every dollar he could.
