Chapter 18
The triplets learned they had almost lived in different houses when they were six.
Not the whole story.
Enough.
The question came from Miles.
Of course.
They were looking through baby photographs.
Three bassinets.
Three hospital hats.
Three names.
Then one photograph of Bianca’s old nursery appeared in a legal archive Sofia had accidentally left open on her laptop.
One crib.
Miles pointed.
“Whose?”
Sofia closed the screen.
Too late.
“Something from when you were babies.”
“Mine?”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
Henry immediately asked:
“Why just Miles?”
Ava asked:
“Where ours?”
There it was.
The problem Julian had created before any of them could speak.
One child separated on paper.
Three children old enough to ask why.
Sofia sat with them.
“Before you came home from the hospital, Dad made a bad plan.”
Miles stared.
“Dad?”
“Yes.”
“He wanted Aunt Bianca to take care of Miles in another apartment for a while.”
Henry frowned.
“Why?”
Sofia chose the sentence carefully.
“Dad was afraid of some things about Grandpa Lorenzo’s life.”
All three looked toward the hallway.
Lorenzo was not there.
Good.
“He thought if Miles stayed with his family first, it could help him later if he and I disagreed about where all of you should live.”
Six-year-olds did not understand custody.
Ava did.
In her own way.
“He make Miles first.”
“Yes.”
“Then us?”
Sofia felt the old documents.
B with Bianca first.
Sofia keeps A/C.
One baby was the lever.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Miles looked at his hands.
“Why me?”
The question Sofia had known would come eventually.
No dramatic answer existed.
That had always made it worse.
“You were Baby B.”
He frowned.
“That not reason.”
“You were healthy enough to leave the hospital on the normal schedule.”
Another pause.
“The adults planning it thought you would be easiest to move.”
Miles looked offended.
“I’m not easy.”
Henry laughed.
Ava nodded seriously.
“Very not.”
Sofia almost smiled.
Miles did not.
“So Dad pick me because easy.”
“Yes.”
“Did he want me?”
Different question.
“Yes.”
Sofia answered immediately.
“He wanted all three of you.”
Miles stared.
“Then why take?”
Because wanting could still become controlling.
Because love did not make methods safe.
Sofia had learned that sentence too many ways.
“He believed he knew what future was safest.”
Another pause.
“And he decided he could force that future before anyone else agreed.”
Ava looked at her.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Court?”
“Yes.”
“Us?”
Sofia’s throat tightened.
“Yes.”
That landed.
Not only Sofia’s authority.
Theirs.
Even as newborns, they had interests separate from adults who claimed to protect them.
Henry asked:
“Dad bad?”
Sofia shook her head.
“I’m not going to give you one word for him.”
“That’s annoying.”
“Yes.”
Miles asked:
“Can ask Dad?”
“Yes.”
At the next visit he did.
“Why me?”
Julian understood immediately.
He looked toward the monitor.
Then stopped himself.
This answer belonged to Miles.
“You were the easiest baby to move on paper.”
Miles frowned.
“That stupid.”
“Yes.”
“Did you like me less?”
“No.”
“More?”
“No.”
Miles looked suspicious.
“Same?”
“Yes.”
Julian swallowed.
“I reduced you to the baby who made my plan easier.”
Miles did not understand every word.
He understood enough.
“That mean stupid.”
“Basically.”
Good.
Miles climbed onto the floor.
Then:
“I want shark.”
Julian stared.
“What shark?”
Apparently emotional processing had ended.
May you like
Children lived in today.
Again.
